



/ 



/ 



A REVIEW 



OF 



THE MEXICAN WAR 



ON 



CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES : 



AND 



AN ESSAY 



ON 



THE MEANS OE TREVENTING WAR. 



BY THE REV. PHILIP BERRY, A. B. 
Of Magdalene College, Cambridge, a Presbyter of the Diocese of Maryland. 



[Reprinted from the Southern Presbyterian Review.] 

'I'OFCO/ 



COLUMBIA, S. C. 
PRINTED BY A. S. JOHNSTON. 

1849. 



The Author is prevented from superintending, personally, the 
publication of this work (which, however, he leaves in the best hands,) 
by his absence in Europe, which will be prolonged for some years. 
And this allusion suggests the mention of the circumstance, that the 
Executive Committee of the Peace Society has appointed him a Del- 
egate to the Peace Congress which will meet in Paris, next August, 
a circumstance which indicates the kind interest felt by its members 
towards this literary effort, (such as it is,) in the cause of peace and 
good will towards men. 



* 3 



ir- 



r- 



ADVEKTISEMENT. 



Although the author of these pages does not ovte to his brethren 
in the ministry, an explanation of his position, as a contributor to a 
Review which is not conducted by members of his own church, yet, 
if there be any who are interested in it, he has only to remind them 
that there is but one Episcopal periodical published in the South, of 
which the editor is a Southerner, or which can be properly regarded 
as a Southern publication. He alludes to that published in Charles- 
ton, the aim of which (to the best of his knowledge) is scarcely other 
than diocesan. 

It must be acknowledged that the brevity of this essay hardly con- 
sists with the importance of the theme, or with the abundance and 
interesting variety of the materials that gather around it. But the 
limited space which, on the present occasion, has been assigned, and 
which is rather imposed by the form of republication that has been 
adopted,* has rendered it expedient to abridge the article to less 
than half of its original length. 

It is, perhaps, as well to apprize the reader, that the work, in its 
previous form, appeared under the signature of " A Southern Dem- 
ocrat," in the competition for a prize oifered by the Peace Society, 
and that the writer is the individual referred to, in the following re- 
marks, in the Peace Advocate. After announcing Mr. Livermore 
as the successful competitor, and the circumstances under which the 
essay of Judge Jay was about to be published, the editor added : — 
" Another of the twelve competitors for the prize, requested the re- 
turn of his manusci'ipt, with a view to publication, and it was ac- 
cordingly sent back to him ; but we do not learn that he has yet 
taken steps to have it published. We should be glad, having seen 
them in manuscript, to see his and several others in print, as we 

♦Besides being intended for gratuitous distribution, principally among the 
friends of the author, the mail was anticipated as the channel of transportation 
to those abroad, as well as in this country. 



VI ADVERTISEMENT. 

think they would be useful, and do credit to their respective au- 
thors." 

The chapter on the prevention of war, was added in consequence 
of a suggestion in the prize advertisement of the Peace Society, 
that the essayists should also treat of " what means may and should 
be adopted by nations, to prevent similar evils in future." In the 
present form of the article, it may seem that more than a due space 
has been allotted to this subject, in a work purporting to treat of a 
particular war. In the original form of it, however, a far less pro- 
portion was thus occupied. 



^r 



CONTENTS. 



7726 Origin of the War. 

1. Preliminary remarks. 

2. The war question, as stated by the Government of the United 
States, and as stated by that of Mexico — by both as having refer- 
ence to Texas. 

3. American claims on Mexico. 

4. Efforts of the Government of the United States to conciliate 
Mexico — Mission of Mr. Slidell — Objection to the course adopted 
by this Government, when the special mission failed in the first 
instance. 

5. Question of the boundary line. — As between Texas and Coha- 
huila. — As between Texas and Mexico. — Remarks on Santa An- 
na's treaty with Texas. — Dismissal of the question unsettled. 

6. The position of the United States, as to the boundary question, a 
peculiar one — but not immediately affected much by the refusal 
of Mexico to treat with them. — Consequent objection to the army 
of the former advancing to the Rio Grande — Formal commence- 
ment of the war by Mexico, but virtual commencement by both 
simultaneously. — It ought to have been averted by the United 
States. 

Observations on certain prhiaiples of policy ijifluencing tlie Go- 
vermnent and much of tJie public spirit in the United States.^ pre- 
viously to the war. 

1 . The former moderate course of the Goverment, which ought not 
to have been abated. 

2. The motive of disabusing the mind of the enemy as to the untram- 
melled powers of the Executive. 

3. Exception taken by this Government to the establishment of a 
monarchy in Mexico. 

4. The expediency of impressing other nations with the power of 
this country. — Allusion to the Oregon treaty. — General Cass and 



VUI CONTENTS. 

the Quintuple treaty. — ^Conclusion as to this impulse to a bellige- 
rent spirit. 

Tlie moral aspect of circumstances in the progress and conduct of 
the %car. 

1. Objection to our army crossing ihQ Rio Grande. — Further con- 
ciliatory propositions to Mexico not consistent with the occupation 
of her soil, or recommended by the apparent force. — Allusion to 
the condition of General Taylor's forces at the time of the earliest 
collision. — Inference from the same, as to any past anticipation of 
the expediency of following up advantages offensively. 

2. The manner of bringing the war to a termination. — The suggest- 
ed assumption of a boundary to the extent of our possessions held 
by force, without a treaty with Mexico. — The suspension of hostile 
movements on arrival at the city of Mexico. — The treaty by which 
the war was terminated. 

3. On Letters of Marque. 

4. The decision of the American Government respecting th6 armis- 
tice at Monterey. 

5. The conduct of the American commanders-in-chief, during the 
war, creditable to their bearing. — The American force. 

6. The Mexican generals. — The women of Mexico. — The Mexican 
forces. 

Miscellaneous Remarks. 

1. The triumps of military skill not among the subjects contemplat- 
ed by this review. — Brief allusion to military qualities of Taylor 
and Scott. — A Mexican accomplishment. — The discussion of mi- 
litary questions, without professional knowledge, and almost uni- 
versal folly, its evil effect. • - 

2. Brief notice of the evils of war. 

3. Principles. — Questions as to the uses of war for the advancement 
of civilization. — Victor Cousin — On just wars. — Schiller cited. — 
The little prospect of national repentance for injustice or inhuman- 
ity, a sufficient argument against all war. — The incongruity of the 
adopted solution of the Mexican question, with the social charac- 
ter of American citizens, which the conduct of their government 
should exhibit. — Illustration of proper national conduct, assuming 
the case to be not an extreme one. — The question turns upon the 
supposition of an extreme one. 



CONTENTS. IX 

4. The xoorld-hi&torkal importance of the recent war. 
On the Prevention of Wars. 
Enumeration of varimis means of preve'tUing the occ^irrcncc of 
war, ofu-hich only a few arc hax treated of. 

1. Peace Societies. — Efficiency of that in America. — Imaginary in- 
tervention of peaceable citizens between two hostile armies. — A 
peace convention should have been proposed to Mexican citizens. 
— The prevention of civil war should be among the objects of such 
societies. 

2. A Congress of nations. 

3. Unfettered commerce. — Bastiat on the protective policy. — Lord 
Palmerstou on the same. — National credit. — International inter- 
course. 

4. On some of the means by which civil war may be prevented. — 
Privileged orders. — Fi'ance and her troubles. — Note on the Fed- 
eralist, and Lamartine, — The Sabbath. — England. — The English 
aristocracy. — A lessened obstruction to the masses of society from 
a use of the earth, a great security against both foreign and civil 
war. — A scrupulous observance of Federal terms and State-rights 
in a Federal commonwealth, essential to its preservation. — The 
most politic kind of resistance to oppression. 

An appeal to the nations. 
The United States. — England, — Note, on the military sentiment of 
the English. — France. — Allusion to the United States and their 
foreign population, especially the Irish. — National duty of the 
United States, in prospect of their position relating to England. — 
The uses of the prevalent exceptions to good feeling between these 
two powers. — The Press. — Remark of Sir Robert Peel. — The Bri- 
tish possessions in the west. — Probable consequences of another 
war, to the United States and to the world. — A word to Mexico. — 
The honor that awaits the nation which hastens to set the exam- 
ple of renouncing war. — The author's hope that a republic will 
have this credit. 

Svpplemcntal notes. 

A. On the modern use of the term chivah y. — The principle of self- 

sacrifice. — Michelet. 

B. The position of the American people with reference to what is 

called repudiation. 



THE 

MEXICAN WAR REVIEWED 

ON 

CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES 



When the views of a theologian by profession are pre- 
sented on a question such us that to which these pages re- 
late, the doubt may well be suggested whether they ought, 
at any time, to treat questions of human strife, detached 
from their relation to the life-principle of peace, and apart 
from their place (one of opposition) in the map of its bear- 
ings on human destiny. Certainly, it is only by the light 
of that principle that we are enabled to exhibit the actual 
magnitude of such subjects, and to assign their due impor- 
tance, relatively to the comprehensive interests of t e 
world. Both the scriptural and the political argument 
against war in general, appear to have been so fully pre- 
sented by other writers, that little scope has been left un- 
occupied in either department. The present writer will 
however attempt the application of such new principles as 
may occur to him in the course of this review. 

In approaching the questions that grow out of the late 
war with Mexico, the following general heads are propos- 
ed to be treated of: — 

I. The origin of the war, 

II. The moral aspect of circumstances in the progress 
and conduct of it. 

t. The Origin of the war is the question that first pre- 
sents itself. 

1. It is not to our purpose to review all that has been ad- 
vanced in controversy on this point. This would amount 
substantially to a repetition, in another form, of the de- 
2 



2 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

bates upon it in Congress. Not that such a course would 
be otherwise than proper, did it promise much avail to the 
result at which we aim. More is likely to ensue from the 
omission, as far as possible, of such details as have but en- 
larged the field of argumentation, without greatly facili- 
tating the settlement of the question. We believe we shall 
succeed too well in showing, that our national course un- 
der such circumstances as are affirmed in our President's 
annual message to Congress in December, 1846, was mo- 
rally and politically exceptionable. It is granted (and is 
little doubted by the present writer,) that those of our cit- 
izens officially concerned, either in the circumstances lead- 
ing to the war, or in its operations, may be acquitted of 
peculiar personal blame in their contribution to the nation- 
al error. Nor can it be doubted that the state of public 
principle — one of indifference it seems to have been — as 
to the moral evil of war, could and did alone permit 
this war to take place, by whatever party it was com- 
menced, and to whatever degree the sense of the nation 
may have been opposed to its occurrence. 

In the present argument, circumstances ordinarily of an 
estimate which we, as moralists, cannot accord to them — 
such as, the rights comprised in "military possession" — 
are necessarily introduced correspondingly to such esti- 
mate ; as it enters into the present design to argue from 
the ordinary worldly acceptation of the circumstances at 
issue, to the conclusion tliat the war was unnecessary and 
morally inexpedient, whatever may be elicited on behalf 
of its justice. 

2. On the part of the United States, the question was 
one of boundary simply, after Texa^ had been annexed 
to this country. On the part of Mexico, it was whether 
Texas should become annexed to the United States — to- 
ward which event she took an offensive position. 

Texas is that part of this continent, which, after being 
in dispute between the United States and Spain, was ceded 
to the latter in the year 1819 — extending, in the previously 
asserted claim of this country, westward from the Sabineto 
the Rio Grande. When certain of the Spanish colonies 
made themselves independent of Spain, the territories of 
Texas and Cohahuila united in forming one independent 
State. " The State constitution which they adopted, and 



On Christian Principles. 3 

which was approved by the Mexican confederation, assert- 
ed that they were ' free and independent of the other Mex- 
ican United States, and of every other power and domin- 
ion whatever.'" Such was the position of this State in 
the federal relation of the Mexican States. When that 
federal relation was dissolved, Texas and Cohahuila were, 
morally and politically, more than ever independent of 
the Mexican States, and of every other power and domin- 
ion whatever. In a comparative moral aspect, she was 
more independent of Mexico than of Spain ; for she was 
disunited fiom Mexico, before the independence of the lat- 
ter was acknowledged by Spain. The ground on which 
Mexico assumed that Texas was not independent of her, 
namely, her recognition withheld, if of any force, would 
show that Texas was independent of every country ex- 
cept Spaiti, at the time the former claimed her perfect in- 
dependence.* Mexico then could with propriety claim 
Texa.s only as a cession from Spain; and that only as 
implied by the delivery to Mexico, and not to Texas, of 
those recognitions which were designed for Texas and 
other States, as well as Mexico. So that the single point 
to which the Mexican argument may be reduced, is, 
whether Spain so possessed Texas at that period, that she 
could present it to Mexico. Presuming that she did not, 
the annexation of Texas to this country required no con- 
sultation on the part of either Texas or the United States, 
with any foreign power. Moieover, Texa.s had been ac- 
knowledged by the world as an independent nation, even 
as Mexico had been during the same generation. Mexi- 
co having for many years abandoned Texas, as beyond 
her power to reconquer and as being in every respect inde- 
pendent of her, except that she had not, in words, abandon- 
ed the assertion of her claim, consented at length to yield 
that recognition, provided the subsequent national course 
of Texas — a part, at least of her future career — would be 
governed by antecedent restrictions from Mexico ; which 
was the substance of the condition that she should not 
annex herself to the United States. The question evident- 
ly was not one that regarded property, but the balance of 
power. Mexico having objections, that were encouraged 

* March 1836. Spain acknowledged the independence of tlie Mexican 
colonies at a subsequent date in that year. 



4 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

by foreign governments, to the extension of the territory 
of the United States in that direction. Bnt as argnment 
on that foundation could be of no avail, her only prospect 
of an effective protest, as having herein the sympathy of 
great powers pledged to her, was in taking the position 
that Texas belonged to her until she should acknowledge 
its independence on her own optional conditions. Texas, 
being independent alike of any inherent or external force 
in the prohibition, accomplished the annexation. Mexico 
in consequence — we will not say, with some, "declared 
war," but — addressed warlike expressions to the govern- 
ment of the United States, and rather threatened than as- 
sumed a warlike attitude. This was in effect all her con- 
duct ; though it may be admitted that the form of it was 
such as, in the code of the world, has usually been held 
to be provocative of war. In this country the national 
honor was not felt to require war as a consequence : nor 
did war ensue thereupon. 

3. I>ooking further back in the order of time, there had 
been during several years a series of complaints on the 
part of the United States against Mexico, for wrongs com- 
mitted on citizens of the former.* The claims founded on 
them, a-id the acknowledgment of those claims by Mexi- 
co, were resolved into a stipulated debt from the Mexican 
government. The non-compliance of the latter with its 
engagement, left the wrongs as they previously stood.t 

* They are thus summed up in a passage from a communication from 
Mr. Forsyth, the then American Secretary of State, dated May 27th 1837, 
addresseil to the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs : — " Treasure, belong- 
ing to tlie citizens of the United Stales, has been seized by Mexican officers, 
inits transit from the capital to the coast. Vessels of the United States 
have been captured, detained, and condemned, upon the most frivolous pre- 
texts. Duties have been exacted from others, notoriously against law, or 
without law. Others have been employed, and in some instances ruined, 
in the Mexican service, without compensation to the owners. Citizens of 
the United States have been imprisoned for long periods of time, without 
being informed of the offences with wl ich they were charged Others have 
been murdered and robbed by iViexicnn officers, on the high seas, without 
any attempt to bring the guilty to i'lstice." 

t There is wanting that analogy which has been alleged, between the 
claims of our government on Mexico, and those of individuals upon our non- 
jDaying States. The defection of these has involved no international ques- 
tion ; partly because it is as one affecting their own citizens, it being but in- 
cidentally that foreigners participate in the effect ; and partly, because our 
States, separately, are to foreign powers as mere companies. It should be 
further observed, that the debt of Mexico was not for money funded, but for 



On Christian PHnciples. 5 

War however was not the result, even of a second viola- 
tion of the terms by Mexico, or of her protracted indecision 
whether she would or would not accede to the proposed 
terms of a third convention relative to the subject. Nor 
does it appear that war was really contemplated by any 
party in connexion with those ciicumstances. 

4. Subsequently to the matters of international contro- 
versy abovementioned, arose the Texan question previous- 
ly stated. Both departments of controversy were associat- 
ed in the object of a special mission offered by the govern- 
ment of the United States to that of Mexico, some time 
after intercourse between them had been suspended. The 
circumstances attending that suspension had been these. 
On the passage of a resolution by the Congress of this 
country in favor of the annexation of Texas, the Mexican 
Minister, resident in Washington, departed, after express- 
ing to the Secretary of State the unfriendly terms which 
he held to exist between his government and that of the 
United States, by the fault of the latter. At the time of 
his preparation for departure, the Secretary of State, in 
reply to his inimical communication,* assured him that 
the " most strenuous efforts should be devoted to the ami- 
cable adjustment of every cause of complaint between the 
two governments, and to the cultivation of the kindest and 
most friendly relations between the sister republics." 

'•Notwithstanding Mexico had abruptly terminated all 
diplomatic intercourse with the United States," the Presi- 
dent embraced what appeared to him to be " the earliest 
favorable opportunity ' to ascertain from the Mexican go- 
vernment whether it would receive an envoy from the 
U?iited States, entrusted with full powers to adjust all the 
questions in dispute between the two governments.'" 
" The consul of the United States, at the city of Mexico, 

personal injuries. If therefore the indemnity was unpaid, the injuries were 
unredressed. 

* Tlie Mexican Minister at "Washington addressed a note to the Secreta- 
ry of Str.te, bearing date of the sixth of March 1845, protesting against the 
resohition referred to as "an act of aggression the most unjust that can be 
found recorded in the annals of modern history ; namely that of despoiling a 
friendly nation, like Mexico, of a considerable portion of her territory;" and 
as an act " whereby the province of 1 exas, an integral portion of the Mexi- 
can territory, is agreed and admitted into the American Union." And he 
announced that, as a consequence, his mission to the United States had ter- 
minated, and demanded his passports, which were granted." — [Fres. Mess. 



6 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

was therefore instructed by the Secretary of State, on the 
fifteenth of September, 1845, to make the inquiry of the 
Mexican government. The inquiry was made, and on 
the fifteenth of October, 1845, the Minister of Foreign Af- 
fairs of the Mexican government, in a note addressed to 
our Consul, gave a favorable response, requesting, at the 
same time, that our naval force might be withdrawn from 
Vera Cruz, while negotiations should be pending. Upon 
the receipt of this note, that force was promptly with- 
drawn from Vera Cruz, A Minister was immediately ap- 
pointed, and departed to Mexico," " To my surprise and re- 
gret, (continues the President,) "the Mexican government, 
though solemnly pledged to do so upon tlie arrival of our 
Minister in Mexico, refused to receive and accredit him. 
When he reached Vera Cruz, on the thirtieth of Novem- 
ber, 1845, he found that the aspect of affairs had under- 
gone an unhappy change. The government of General 
Herrera, who was at that time president of the republic, 
was tottering to its fall. General Paredes, a military lea- 
der, had manifested his determination to overthrow the 
government of Herrera by a military revolution ; and one 
of the principal means which he employed to effect his 
purpose, and render the govciument of Herrera odious to 
the army and people of Mexico, was by loudly condemn- 
ing its determination to receive a Minister from the United 
States, alleging that it was the intention of Herrera, by a 
treaty with the United States, to dismember the territory 
of Mexico, by ceding away the department of Texas, The 
government of Herrera is believed to have been well dis- 
posed to a pacific adjustment of existing difficulties ; but, 
probably alarmed for its own security, and in order to ward 
off the danger of the revolution led by Paredes, violated 
its solemn agreement, and refused to receive or accredit 
our Minister ; and this, although informed that he had 
been invested with full power to adjust all questions in 
dispute between the two governments. Among the frivo- 
lous pretexts for this refusal, the principal one was, that 
our Minister had not gone upon a special mission, confin- 
ed to the question of Texas alone, leaving all the outrages 
upon our flag and our citizens umedressed. The Mexi- 
can government well knew that both our national honor 
and the protection due to our citizens imperatively requir- 



On Christian Principles. 7 

ed that the two questions of boundary and indemnity 
should be treated of together, as naturally and inseparably- 
blended ; and they ought to have seen that this course was 
best calculated to enable the United States to extend to 
them the most liberal justice. On the thirtieth of Decem- 
ber, 1845, General Herrera resigned the presidency, and 
yielded up the government to General Paredes. Although 
the prospect of a pacific adjustment with the new govern- 
ment was unpromising, from the known hostility of its 
head to the United States, yet, determined that nothing 
should be left undone on our part to restore friendly rela- 
tions between the two countries, our Minister was instruct- 
ed to present his credentials to the new government and 
ask to be accredited by it in the diplomatic character in 
which he had been commissioned. These instructions he 
executed by his note of the first of March, 1846, addressed 
to the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs ; but his re- 
quest was insultingly refused by that Minister, in his an 
swer of the twelfth of the same month. No alternative re- 
mained for our Minister l)ut to demand his passports, and 
return to the United States."* 

There can be little question that it would have been 
greatly to the advantage of Mexico "that the two ques- 
tions of boundary and indemnity should be treated of to- 
gether." She would probably have been released from the 
claims of the United States upon her for indemnity, on 
her restoring the hand of friendship and withdrawing from 
her attitude on the Texan question. This may be almost 
inferred from the president's remark — " they ought to have 
seen that this course was best calculated to enable the 
United States to extend to them the most liberal justice." 
But setting aside the duty of endeavoring to conciliate 
Mexico, the government might without impropriety have 
confined its commimication to the old question of indem- 
nity, and omitted all notice of Texas for the present, since 
it was not to obtain the recognition of that country as in- 
dependent, that mention of it was made in connexion with 
the mission. The boundary question had not yet indis- 
pensably come up, and might have been adjourned, but 
for a two-fold consideration in the mind of our govern- 

« President's Message. 



8 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

ment ; namely, that Mexico being sore on the subject of 
the Texan annexation, was not in a disposition to satisfy 
our previous grievances ; and that the combination of the 
two would suggest to Mexico a mode of obtaining repara- 
tion for the assumed wrong. The course thus far of our 
government, cannot, in our humble judgment, be surpass- 
ed for its moderation and good policy. With reference to 
Mr. Slidell's pressing his reception on the Mexican govern- 
ment, it may be remarked ; — first, that Herrera's govern- 
ment could have gained nothing by Mr. Slidell's adoption 
of its suggestion (had it been in his power to do so,) to 
circumscribe his official character and the object of his mis- 
sion, to that of a Commissioner on the Texan question ; 
inasmuch as this question, was the rock by means of which 
Herrera's government had been already doomed to a spee- 
dy downfall; and secondly, that our government would 
have gained nothing subsequently from Parades by offer- 
ing him the compromise that had been required by Her- 
rera as the condition of Mr. Slidell's reception. The poli- 
cy however of this government in presenting the subject 
at all to the government of Paredes, appears questionable, 
considering the "unpromising light," in which "the pros- 
pect of a pacific adjustment with the new government," 
appeared, "from the known hostility of its head to the 
United States."' It would apparently have been more con- 
ducive to the interests of peace, had no intercourse been 
proposed to the then government of Mexico. A brief delay 
was not unlikely to usher into that nation councils more au- 
spicious to a settlement of the matters at issue. And even 
if not, it had been better that our government had observ- 
ed a continued, if not conclusive, silence on its claims to 
iiidemnity from a nation comparatively bankrupt, and not 
opened communication with Mexico on this or any other 
subject, until a question of boundary should be unavoida- 
bly raised. In the mean time, it might have exercised 
territorial administration between the Nueces and the Rio 
Grande, confining it for a period to the extent to which 
it had been been enforced by Texas. There is reason 
for supposing that, before the lapse of such a space of time 
as would exhaust the patience of our government, the 
question of boundary would have presented itself in the 
due course of events, as arising from the natural state of 



Oti Christian Principles. 9 

things on the frontier. As for any supposed liability to 
disadvantage in not taking early possession of such fron- 
tier, we are perhaps justified in presuming that the pass- 
age of our vessels upon the Rio Grande, while it could 
not have been prevented by the Mexicans, would have 
sufficiently expressed our territorial claims, and contribu- 
ted much to a virtual settlement of them. 

5. It is in the order of argument that we now address 
some observations to the question of the boundary line 
between Texas and Mexico, in that region where it was 
an occasion of strife. 

It is manifest that the limits of Texas, if ever distinct, 
could not be justly affected by the abolition of federal re- 
lations between her and other States ; and therefore the 
judgment is erroneous that Texas had a right only to as 
much territory as she had held military possession of; for 
this is a false test of right, and one which those who ap- 
ply it to the case of Texas do not acknowledge in other 
cases. 

Again, it has been already stated that Texas and Coha- 
huila composed one State. Then it was only with the 
permission of the Government they had in common, tiiat 
any portion of the State they composed could separate 
from the remainder — unless by a revolution in this State 
altogether distinct from such as might affect the whole 
State in its relation to the other Mexican States. Thus 
only could Texas and Cohahuila become separate and 
independent of each other. If, before their separation, 
there was strife between them as to union with the other 
States after the manner newly proposed, and if Cohahuila 
held Texas with her power as still a part of herself, then 
whether she united herself with the other States or not, 
she might with truth and propriety inform the world that 
her boundary extended eastward to the Sabine. If, on 
the other hand, Texas held Cohahuila in the manner 
conversely supposed, her boundary would extend much 
further westward than the Rio Grande. In that case, a 
Mexican occupation of Cohahuila by force would not, by 
itself, deprive Texas of her right to that territory. And 
if, simultaneously with such an occupation of Cohahuila, 
Texas became annexed to the United States, then the po- 
sition of Cohahuila relatively to Texas would have been 
3 



10 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

conditionally this: — if she was not endeavoring or will- 
ing to eflfect her separation from Texas, it would have 
been analogous to that of New Mexico, if, at the time 
that province was held by the forces of the United States, 
and before it was ceded to the latter, Mexico had been 
voluntarily annexed to some other country. Texas and 
Cohahuila however did not question the independence of 
one another, when an opposition of their respective ten- 
dencies indicated that the time for its accomplishment had 
arrived. Cohahuila* yielded itself to Mexico ; and if the 
people of that province have since pretended any claim 
to Texas, it has been only after the manner of, and in 
combination with, the other newly constituted provinces 
of Mexico. 

Where then was the boundary line between Texas and 
Cohahuila after the separation between them? Either 
they had not time to bestow on the subjectj or they deemed 
a constructive boundary sufficient; most probably the for- 
mer circumstance led to the latter conclusion as at least a 
temporary one. They may have assumed either a demar- 
cation established during the period of their union, or (if 
there were none such) one existing previously to that event. 
Of the former description there does not appear to have 
been any; so that our only resource is in one of the latter. 
And as this is equally the alternative left in the case of 
the other provinces on the Rio Grande opposite to Texas, 
antecedently to the confederation, the boundary question 
as to Cohahuila becomes blended with those as to the 
other provinces, New Leon and Tamaulipas — resolving 
them into one point, namely, the boundary between Tex- 
as and Mexico previously to their separation from Spain. 
The treaty between Spain and the United States in the 
year 1819 — by which all the claims of the United States 
(just or unjust) from the Sabine to the Rio Grande were 
ceded to Spain — so far from throwing light over any past 
boundary, rather indicates that there was none previously, 
and tends to bury it if there was any. Had there been 
any distinct one, it would have greatly aided the solution 

* Cohahuila was invaded by Mexico, and her senators imprisoned ; but 
this was because ihey did not so far yield to the Dictatorship as to surren- 
der all their arms, which eveiy State was required to do. But they declined 
joining the Texan resistance to further dependence on Mexico. 



On Christian Principles. 11 

of the point before us, provided no new one was subse- 
quently established — and we know of none.* We do not 
say that there have been no definite statements made as 
to a boundary. There have been such at different times, 
proceeding from statesmen, geographers and travellers, but 
too conflicting to be profitably adduced on this occasion. 
Few if any geographical-historical questions have been 
so tantalizing as the present one, from its fertility of cir- 
cumstances suggestive of inference, which alternate the 
balance of apparent right between the two sides, and from 
the deficiency of conclusive force on either of them. It is 
remarkable that local history of this importance should 
be wanting to so recent a period, and that its materials 
should be so conflicting.! A boundary question between 
obscure and hardly accessible villages, that have almost 
ceased to exist, could present scarcely greater obstacles 
to an arbitrator. It was a question in which arbitration 
could noi well have pronounced a decision, if it were a 
condition that a river should be the line ; although, if other- 
wise, there might have been less difficulty in such a mode 
of adjustment. It might have assigned to Mexico the set- 
tlements immediately on the east bank of the Rio Grande, 
and to Texas the remainder of the country west of the 
Nueces — a boundary which would have been manifestly 
inconvenient, and leading ultimately to endless disagree- 
ment among the borderers. It was a question then which 
could be properly settled only by an amicable arrange- 
ment, and an accommodating disposition between the par- 
ties concerned. It was not unreasonable in Texas to claim, 
on her separation from Mexico, a boundary which nature 
and history alike beheld with much favour ; still less so 
in the United States to regard it in the light in which 
Texas had presented it, when Mexico refused to commu- 
nicate to this Government even so much as a contradic- 
tion of the Texan representation, after being invited to an 
interchange of sentiments. 

A question here arises, in what light should the settle- 
ments of Mexicans on the east side of the Rio Grande, 

* " The detail of her (Mexico's) colonial history is buried in Spanish ar- 
chives." Meyer. 

t This very mystery throws a classical halo around this and other points 
in the present subject, to one who has diligently investigated them. 



12 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

\ 
opposite to New Leon and Tamaulipas, be regarded? 
Borders of countries are liable to indiscriminate settle- 
ment without necessarily aifecting the citizenship of the 
settlers, or the boundary between the countries to which 
they are respectively subject. Nor is the accident of their 
being all citizens or subjects of the same country in itself 
sufficient to change the nationality of the soil. Mexican 
officers weie indeed stationed there, in the exercise of juris- 
diction. It was natural for the settlers in question, though 
in former times subject most probably to the Spanish gov- 
ernors of Texas, to look to the opposite side of the river 
for jurisdiction, now that the banks they occupied were 
apparently, at least for a time, beyond the notice of Texas, 
owing to the difficult occupation of her government at a 
great distance from the scene, as rendered necessary by 
recent events. Of these circumstances the Mexican au- 
thorities would be likely to take advantage, inasmuch as 
they were at hostilities with Texas, supposing that under 
other circumstances they would not have done so. We 
venture to express the humble opinion that the rights of 
Texas were not neutralized, though somewhat prejudiced, 
by neglect of surveillance, or by continued silence in her 
foreign* department. In like manner, the claims of Mex- 
ico were in no greater degree compromised during the 
period that Texas extended her jurisdiction westward of 
the Nueces, or when the forces of the United States occu- 
pied the west bank of that river. 

It is of the highest importance to the argument, that 
Mexico claimed the country west of the Nueces on no 
other ground than she claimed that on the east side of 
the same river. She appears to have deemed it a com- 
promise of her claim to Texas to argue the question of 
its extent in any direction save that towards the Sabine. 
We are not aware of any regard paid to the question of 
the west side of the Nueces, until Paredes, in his procla- 

*She was not silent at home on the subject: — "During a period of more 
than nine years which intei-vened between the adoption of her Constitution 
and her annexation as one of the States of our Union, Texas asserted apd 
exercised many acts of sovereignty and jurisdiction over the territoiy and 
inhabitants west of the Nueces. She organized and defined the limits of 
counties extending to the Rio Grande. She established courts of justice, 
and extended her judicial system over the territoiy," &-c. (Pres. Message.) 
She had not praciicuUy extended it to the Rio Grande. 



Oil Christian Principles. 13 

mation dated the 23d of April, immediately before the war, 
or, according to himself, after the war had commenced, 
remarks — "Hostilities have been commenced by the Uni- 
ted States of North America, beginning new conquests 
upon the frontier territories of the departments of Tamau- 
lipas and New Leon." The first occasion on which the 
west bank of the Nueces is mentioned by any Mexican 
authority, as a claim (so understood by some) independ- 
ently of the comprehensive claim to Texas, is in the requi- 
sition made by the Mexican general, Ampudia, (Matamo- 
ras, April 12th, 1846,) to General Taylor, that he would 
"retire to the other bank of the river while our govern- 
ments are regulating the pending qiuestion in relation to 
Texas." But there appears to be little frankness in this 
communication, inasmuch as General Ampudia must have 
been as well informed as General Taylor that (according 
to the reply of the latter of the same date,) "an envoy 
despatched to Mexico .... had not been received by the 
actual Mexican Government, if indeed he had not received 
his passports and left the republic." 

Further, the consent of Texas to the Nueces as a bound- 
ary to the once projected State, that was to have been the 
result of revolutionizing a small portion of Mexico, and to 
have been named "Rio Grande," does not involve, as it 
has been suggested, an incongruity with her claim to terri- 
tory beyond it; for it was likely enough that, in her desire 
for the formation of a new State between herself and Mex- 
ico, she would contribute to that object a region which 
she could well spare to a friendly, and still more conven- 
ient, neighbour. 

By the treaty of Santa Anna with Texas, while he was 
a prisoner of war, it has been contended that the bound- 
ary was adequately settled, it being therein agreed that it 
should be the Rio Grande. If, on the value of a treaty, 
of which differing estimates have been entertained by pub- 
lic men, that of an individual unlettered in the law of na- 
tions be worthy of any attention, we submit the following 
one, and without at all aiming at a middle or compromis- 
ing view. Considering ihe constitutional independence of 
Texas, which rendered an invasion of it by Mexico quite 
different in principle from an invasion (say) of Ireland by 
England, in case there was set up in the latter country a 



14 The Mexican War Reviewed^ 

new form of government, to which the former would not 
submit — and considering that the war between Texas 
and Mexico consisted in a resistance by the former to an 
enterprise of Santa Anna for the purpose of subjecting her 
to his usurped dictatorship, she was entitled to the full 
benefit of his disclaimer of such pretension for the future, 
by whatever means she compelled it. It was a simple 
question oi force on the part of Santa Anna ; and it was 
by arms that Texas compelled the discontinuance of that 
force. By his treaty with her, proposed by himself, the 
independence of Texas was established, at least as far as 
the military dictatorship of Mexico was concerned in it ; 
and his personal authority seems to be as plenary with 
reference to this matter, as his pretended one to overthrow 
the constitution of Texas, or to compel its subjection to a 
country, its confederation with which had been made to 
cease (and that by his act). Texas had both him and 
his army in her power ; * and these availed themselves of 
the advantages conceded to them by this treaty. Santa 
Anna was actmg, not as a minister of the Mexican nation, 
but as its military conqueror, with reference to the setting 
up of a new government in every State. He and those 
who succeeded to his position were bound by this treaty 
— one by which the very party that had set up the new 
order of thmgs (Santa Anna and his forces) obtained their 
liberty. The treaty then is valid so far as it had respect 
to the freedom of Texas from future molestation — it being 
virtually a trial of right by force, in which she succeeded. 
But the question of boundary was not one that he could 
treat of, except in cathedra, or as accredited elsewhere ; 
it being independent of the continuance or cessation of the 
federal relations. So that Texas could not with propriety 
claim the settlement of the boundary as by conquest. The 
objection that Santa Anna was in duress is valid as regards 
this last particular. It is not of equal force in both par- 
ticulars, because in the former Texas demanded merely a 
desistance from violence — in the latter, a cession of that 

* It appears singular that Texas did not liberate Cohahuila, and go to the 
assistance of Zacatecas. The revoh of Zacatecas belongs more to the ro- 
mance of history, though less to world-history, than that of Texas. 



On Christian Principles. 15 

which was not indisputably her territory. We are not 
brought by this section of the survey at all nearer to cer- 
tainty as to a boundary line.* 

In fine, the question of the western boundary of Texas, 
we may as well dismiss, as one that judgment cannot 
grasp. Nor is it indispensable to the moral argument on 
the war, as will duly appear. Indeed, as the parties who 
have approved of the war, have in general made up their 
minds that the Rio Grande was the true boundary previ- 
ously to it, (here appears to be little advantage gained by 
arguing the war question on any other assumption than 
that such was the boundary. Our argument is, in part, 
that, assuming such to have been the proper boundary, 
the Avar was nevertheless unjustifiable, and that, too, on 
other grounds than that of an exclusive Christian principle. 

It is as well to remark, that whenever the Rio Grande 
has been here mentioned, with reference to the bound- 
ary of Texas, it is only within a limited latitude, and 
not to the full extent of the river course. New Mex- 
ico extends eastward of this river. " Santa Fe de Nuevo 
Mexico," which is east of it, is mentioned in the fifth ar- 
ticle of the Mexican federation, as a separate " territory," 
after Texas and Cohahuila are included in one " State." t 
Texas, however, laid claim to that part of New Mexico, 
in defining her revolutionary boundary, as it has been 
termed. It is incorrectly so termed ; for Texas was not 
revolutionized, but declined participation in that revolu- 
tion which was introduced into the other States, and thus 
became affected in little other than an extraneous man- 
ner. In defining her boundary, so as to include New 
Mexico, it was implied that it became an object to her af- 
ter hostilities had taken place between herself and Mexico. 

* Santa Anna seems to have regarded the Rio Grande as the boundary- 
line ; though, if he did, that is no proof that it was so. The following lan- 
guage occurs in a proclamation of General Wall, issued by his order, dated 
June 20th, 1844 (as quoted by Mr. Rusk in Congress) — "Every individual 
who shall be found at the distance of one league from the left bank of the 
Rio Bravo, will be regarded as a favorer and accomplice of the usurpers of 
that part of the national temtory, and as a treiitor to his country; and, after 
summary military trial, shall be punished as such." By that part of the 
national territmij is meant Texas. 

t Appendix to Congressional Globe, 29th Congress, 2d session, p. 385. 



16 The Mexican War Revietoed, 

But it does not appear that she would have contested it 
with a nation at peace with her. How far up the east 
bank of the Rio Grande (allowing that river to be the 
western boundary) the territories of Texas extended, in 
other words, ihe northern boundary line of Texas, is not 
material to the question in which we are engaged, even 
were this line particularly distinct. 

6. When the government of Mexico refused communi- 
cation with that of the United States, on the application 
of the latter, through an express envoy, the government 
of the United States could but act on the best information 
it could obtain, with reference to the boundary of this 
country, at the frontier of Mexico. It was therefore po- 
litically warranted in stationing troops anywhere within 
the boundary line represented by Texas as her's, previ- 
ously to the act of annexation ; though it would not be 
morally warranted in making no discrimination between 
the historical line (wherever ascertainable) and the revo- 
lutionary one. Nor, in fact, was this government indis- 
criminate, as regarded New Mexico, the possession of 
which was not attempted. All the arrangements, how- 
ever, should have been so made as to avoid, rather than 
evince a readiness for, the issue. The Americans were 
in quiet possession of the region west of the Nueces, with 
very little exception, whilst Gen. Taylor's force remained 
at Corpus Christi, near that river. "To repel any inva- 
sion of the Texan territory which might be attempted by 
the Mexican forces, it was deemed sufficient, in the spring 
of 1845, that our squadron had been ordered to the gulf, 
and our army to take a position between the Nueces and 
the Del Norte (or Rio Grande)." * It was in pursuance 
of this order that General Taylor took the position above 
mentioned. No Mexican forces had then crossed the Rio 
Grande ; all was quiet as long as General Taylor remained 
near the Nueces. What then were the augmented neces- 
sities of the case which, in the following spring, impelled 
the advance of our army to the banks of the Rio Grande ? 
There had been indeed a change of government — Herrera 
deposed — Paredes in power. "The partisans of Paredes 
(as our minister in the despatch referred to states,) breathed 

♦ President's Message. 



On Christian Principles. 17 

the fiercest hostility against the United States." The re- 
conquest of Texas and war with the United States were 
openly threatened. These were the circumstances exist- 
ing, when it was deemed proper to order the army under 
the command of General Taylor to advance to the west- 
ern frontier of Texas, and occupy a position on or near 
the Rio Grande.* If these were all the circumstances 
that created the propriety of marching the troops from 
Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, in what remarkable 
particular did this propriety outweigh that which required 
the army to remain at the former station? — "the threat- 
ened invasion from Mexico?" There had been such men- 
aces from Mexico for several years before our army entered 
Texas. If Mexico was until then unequal to the fulfil- 
ment of her menaces, or abstained from attempt to carry 
them into effect, what probability was there of her so do- 
ing, when our= army was there ? What effect had yet 
been consequent on the circular of Conde, the Mexican 
Minister of War, as far back as in July, 1845, announcing 
to various authorities that war was declared against the 
United Stales, and enunciating the vocabulary of military 
preparation? It has resulted as was apparently taken for 
granted that it would, there being at the time little curios- 
ity <is to what "might in lhat noise reside !"t The atti- 
tude of Mexico was subsequently scarcely more threaten- 
ing than aforetime. Aud without assuming it to have been 
the effect exclusively of our advanced position, experi- 
exice has proved that collision — sanguinary collision — 
took place very soon afterwards ; while th^ '.-e is far from 
being ground, as suggested by previous experience, for 
the expectation of such collision, had our army retained 
its position at Corpus Christi. It has been indeed stated, 
and we have no contradiction of it, that General Arista, 
commanding on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, 
proposed to General Taylor that they should retain their 
relative positions, to avoid collision. t In fact, the object 
of the Mexican army crossing the Rio Grande does not 
appear to have been so much for the purpose of contest- 
ing a question of boundary — which would have been 

♦ President's Message, 

t Milton. 

tMr. Harper's Speech— Congr. Globe, Appendix, p. 203. 

4 



18 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

rather a refinement scarcely worth its while, considering 
the domestic circumstances of the nation, as for that of pro- 
tecting her citizens on the east bank, who were regarded, 
though without sufficient reason, as molested by the ap- 
proach of an American army — a motive anything but dis- 
creditable to Mexico. In so doing, however, she invaded 
a soil which this Government had been forced to regard 
as an appendage of the United States, by the refusal of 
Mexico to enter into any communication on the question 
whether it was a part of Texas. Nor should it be denied 
that the pointing of our guns opposite Metamoras* was 
not unlike a threatening demonstration to the Mexican 
forces : for, notwithstanding that the latter had set this 
example, they seem to have regarded it as originally the 
intention of the American general, without reference to 
what was done on the Mexican side. Had Gen. Taylor 
not shown his batteries in response to the measures on 
the Mexican side, it is highly probable that they would 
not have fired on his fort. But these active war-like pre- 
parations being accompanied by an exhibition to the Mexi- 
cans of the very small force at the fort, presented attrac- 
tions scarcely resistible to a foe that had received authority 
to "attack by every means which war permits," and "to 

* As a great deal has been made of this circumstance, to the prejudice of 
the Government, it is proper to mention General Taylor's account of it. In 
his letter of March 29th, 1846, to the Adjutant General, he says: — "Our 
approach seems to have created much excitement in Metamoras; and a great 
deal of activity has been displayed since our arrival, in the preparation of 
batteries. The left bank is now under the reconnoisance of our engineer 
officers, and I shall lose no time in strengthening our position by such de- 
fensive works as may be necessary, employing for that purpose a portion of 
the heavy guns brought round by sea. The attitude of the Mexicans is so 
far decidedly hostile. An interview has been held, by my direction, with 
the military authorities of Metamoras, but with no satisfactory result." 

On the 6th of April, he thus wrote: — "The Mexicans still retain a hos- 
tile attitude, and have thrown up some works, evidently designed to prevent 
us trom crossing the river. . . . On our side, a battery for four eighteen- 
pounders will be completed, and the guns placed in battery to-day. These 
guns bear directly upon the public square of Metamoras, and within good 
range for demolisliing the town. Their object cannot be mistaken, atid will, 
I think, effectually restrain Mm frcin any enterprise upan mir side of the river. 
A bastioned field fort, for a garrison of 500 men, has been laid out by engi- 
neers in rear of the battery, and will be commenced immediately." 

It is manifest, from some of the above expressions, that it was not intended 
to provoke the Mexicans to commence hostiUties. 



On Christian Principles. ,, 19 

destroy wherever they might find " our army.* We say 
they received autJwrity — for we can hardly regard as or- 
ders what were sounded for popular effect, and which the 
Mexican commanders do not appear to have held as obliga- 
tory. Nor do we believe that until they saw our army, the 
Mexicans believed themselves to be actually at war, more 
than they had been for a long ivhile. This is evinced by 
the wrhole of their proceedings. They were then insulted 
by the smallnessof the apparently challenging force — Uttle 
more than 3,000 men (and these divided in order to main- 
tain two positions); and they were attracted by the oppor- 
tunity of capturing a hated adversary. But if, at the time 
of their crossing the river, it had been intended as a step 
merely collateral with our own movement, for the purpose 
of a joint possession until a further attempt at a settlement 
should be made by the two governments, however singu- 
lar if not unprecedented would have been the relative po- 
sition of the two armies, it is more than probable that no 
blow would have been struck by our own.t The Mexi- 
cans, however, announced a far different intention, and 
aggressively pursued it, making the first 2X)sitive demon- 
stration of — or placing beyond question the existence of 
— that state of war, which may be considered as having 
been simultaneously entered into. Such was the origin 
and commencement of the Mexican war — a war which, 
tested by the principles which have ordinarily governed 
what is called the civilized world in its international rela- 
tions, was and will be pronounced (we have no doubt) by 
posterity to have been, on the part of the United States, 
one of the most jusi wars that have blotted with gore the 
history of man — a war that might nevertheless have been 
avoided by the United States, had they been so disposed, 
probably without diminution of an inch of territory, cer- 
tainly without detriment to their soil or their people, or 

* Letter from the Mexican Minister of War to the Mexican general near 
the Rio Grande, quoted in the President's Message. 

+ Orders had indeed been given by this Government (August 25th, 1845,) 
that the crossing of the river should be regarded as hostile; but considering 
the associations which led to such order, the above specvxlation is not exclu- 
ded by it. Besides, Mr. Secretary Marcy's order of July 8th, 1845, is ex- 
pressly, that Mexican troops, if any were found to be already on our side of 
the Rio Grande, should not be molested unless an actual state of war should 
exist. 



20 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

even what is called their honour — a war, consequently, 
which no degree of political justice (in the ordinary sense 
of the expression,) could morally justify. 

Before taking leave of the question of the origin of the 
war, an observation or two shall be submitted, on certain 
principles of policy, by which the Government and the 
public spirit of this country was in great measure influ- 
enced antecedently to the rupture with the sister republic. 

1. Allusion has been made to the great moderation which 
characterized this Government in its advances to that of 
Mexico. This, instead of diminishing, (as maintained by 
the President,) rather augmented the duty of a continued 
abstinence from the semblance of any different course; for 
what harm resuhed from the extent to which moderation 
was carried ? — To give vent to her feelings in expressions 
of disdain, menace, triumph, declaration of war, and of 
whatsoever else had long been conventionally, as it were, 
a privilege of Mexico. It was a very material element of 
gratification to her — a field for the play of exuberant im- 
pulse. What if she evinced a more than ordinary passion 
in her sport, and bounded, lull of life and fire, on the banks 
of the Rio Grande — feigning, now encounter, now retreat ! 
If these movements on her own side of the river were to 
be regarded with suspicion by ourselves, excusable might 
be the suspicions of a Mexican force, at the movements, 
on disputed soil, of an army representing a matter-of-fact 
people. Again, it should be borne in mind that, previously 
to the war, Mexico was not alone in the opinion that she 
had been injured. The press of the greatest nations had 
done much to flatter that impression. The diplomacy of 
those nations had still greater effect, interested as they 
were in the independence of Texas. We repeat, then, that 
over and above the duty of our government to exercise 
very tender moderation towards Mexico, as it certainly did 
for a while, the very consideration of its having so done, 
in virtue of that point of Christian civilization at which 
we prufess to have rrrived, laid it under the greater obli- 
gation towards Iier, as a lieigbbor, to persevere in the same 
policy. Any wanton misconstruction of it would be re- 
moved, sooner or later — and what if a generation passed 
away in the interval? Not all the advantage, in the form 
manifested hitherto, that Mexico could have taken of our 



Oti Christian Principles. 21 

deportment in that period, or even in any space of time, 
(considering that the interruption of relations gave her 
little opportunity,) was worth a single citizen, or would 
justify the sacrifice of one. Our "strength was to sit 
still ;" and so long as we were so doing, Mexico did us 
no harm, whatever she might have in store. 

2. Again, it has been the policy approved by many as 
being that of the administration, though not represented as 
such by authority, that it was important for a threatening 
foe to be made aware that delay in entering upon war 
when necessary, would not present itself as an impedi- 
ment growing out of our constitution, as imagined by some, 
at all events by the Mexican government. And although 
this is not submitted as any part of the policy that should 
contribute to a war, yet it is confidently held up as a justifi- 
cation of the government, in not consulting with Congress 
before marching the forces to the Rio Grande. The execu- 
tive commission does not appear to have been transcended 
in any way. But, to order the army as the President did, in 
his capacity of Commander-in-chief, to the seat of impen- 
ding strife, at a time when the irritation of Mexico was at 
its height, without consultation with Congress then in ses- 
sion, seems to have implied either an opinion of the un- 
concern of every one, who was not a member of the ad- 
ministration, in the movements of the army and in the 
consequences of such, or else an apprehension that his 
plans would not be concurred in by the representatives of 
the people. It is not herein meant that he should have 
submitted to Congress a question of the boundary of Tex- 
as to be assumed, as that matter was not necessarily in 
point, at least just then, but a question as to the most ex- 
pedient course under the circumstances newly presented 
to his notice as of increased warlike aspect. Delay would 
not necessarily result from so doing, in case of invasion ; 
inasmuch as whatever the executive may do without con- 
suUmg Congress, it may do (it is presumed) without await- 
ing its dfcision, if too tardy for the emergency. Further, 
since an inference in favor of the impulse under consider- 
ation, has been drawn from an impression on the part of 
the Mexican government, that by the Constitution of the 
United States, the President alone had not power to take 
requisite measures for the defence of the country, and 



22 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

that the Congress and people of the United States would 
not sustain the President in the warlike purpose attribut- 
ed to him ; on the other hand, it is not an ill-founded pre- 
sumption that the Mexican government felt secured by 
the supposed trammels of our government, against the oc- 
currence of any collision before our army marched to the 
Rio Grande ; and that, all its official declarations notwith- 
standing, the government and people of Mexico had not 
more prospect of a military encounter than did the people 
of the United States, until the first blood had been spilt. 

3. Again, it appears to have been a paramount princi- 
ple in the mind of our President, to associate a scheme in 
Mexico for the establishment of a monarchy there, with 
the necessity for resistance to it by the United States. 
Paredes was supposed to entertain the project. If there 
were a prospect of his success, then, it is to be inferred 
from the President's intimation, that warlike preparations 
would be necessary. Whether this necessity would be 
created by the simple fact of a monarchy being establish- 
ed in Mexico, or by the selection of a European prince, is 
not clearly discriminated in the form of intimation adopt- 
ed by him. But he appears to assume that an election to 
the contemplated throne of Mexico must be made from 
European candidates. On the other hand, an exercise 
by Mexico of her right to choose her own form of govern- 
ment, does not appear to involve the necessity of her ac- 
ceptance or even toleration of European intervention. The 
idea of any other opposition to her free choice than is im- 
plied by the exercise of influence, tends greatly to the in- 
jury of the republican character. Inasmuch as the ques- 
tion was not connected with the recent collision with 
Mexico, save through the mention of it by the President 
as adding justification to his policy, we have to do with it 
only so far as it is associated with the danger of entertain- 
ing the principle of intervention with the domestic affairs 
of another nation, at a period when we are in controversy 
with her on international points ; so liable is this super- 
fluous prepossession to affect the natural course of the in- 
dependent questions. 

4. Another ascendant impulse avowed, not by the go- 
vernment, but by the party encouraging the war, was the 
importance to our interests that we should use the occa- 



On Christian Principles. 23 

sion presented by the offences of Mexico, to present evi- 
dences of our warlike capacities to the rest of the world, 
in which (it is said) there has long been an assumption of 
our very limited capacities of that nature, through our in- 
dependence of standing armies. Evidences of national 
power have indeed been furnished in the aptitude for mi- 
litary discipline evinced by the modest novices sent to the 
field of action against multiplied hosts, and in the readiness 
which answered the summons for volunteer forces to any 
requisite number. In addition to which it may be remark- 
ed that the Northern line of our country was not in re- 
quisition for its masses, which had not, on this occasion of 
Southern warfare, those calls of interest which would have 
roused them had it been a Northern blast that sounded.* 
This difference in circumstances between the two at- 
mospheres of warfare, is worthy of consideration from 
those who have cast on our government the imputa- 
tion of adopting a different policy respecting Oregon from 
that respecting Texas. The truth is, that advances were 
made to Mexico which were never made to Great Britain. 
Towards the latter na^tion, a deportment of a far different 
character was called in question on both sides of the ocean. 
The only semblance of analogy between the two cases, 
antecedently to the final issues of conduct in each of them 
respectively, consists in this ; — our government had trans- 
actions with each, of a nature which partly for euphony, 
and partly in deference to the quality of the " high con- 
tracting parties," is called diplomacy. Mexico living in an 

♦Mr. Polk remarked in his last annual message, that the nation could at 
any time command "two millions such as fought the battles in Mexico." Gen- 
eral Taylor has been reported to have said in one of his speeches — " we are 
a nation of soldiery !" — Both meant, no doubt, merely the contrast to the state 
of things implied by the following speech : — " I would demand and question, 
if I should not displease, how many knights be there now in England, that 
have the use and exercise of a knight 1 that is, to wit, that he knoweth his 
horse, and his horse him ; that is to say, hebeing ready at a point to have all 
things that belongeth to a knight, an horse that is according and broken af- 
ter ms hand, his armour and harness mete and so forth, et cetera. I sup- 
pose, and a due search should be made, there be many founden that lack." 
This passage is from " The Book of the Ordre of Chyvahy, or Knyghthode, 
translated out of Frensshe into Englisshe, by me William Caxton" — one of 
Hartshorne's " Book Rarities of the University of Cambridge," — " supposed 
to have been printed in 1484" — "one of the most interesting and rare volumes 
from Caxton's press." It is in tlie Pepysian Library of Magdalene College, 
Cambridge. 



24 The Mexican War Reviewed^ 

ideal* world — her policy being in character with it — knew 
not how to entertain the proposition made to her. What 
place could it obtain in the romance of Mexican history 1 — 
and how could it be apprehended by the strings of the 
Southern lyre? — England has acted in her national spir- 
it, which on the other hand was towards a practical 
end. She ascertained that her interest required no more 
than had. been previously proposed to her, but which she 
had then declined — while the American government pre- 
ferred its claim to a higher latitude merely to draw from 
her the proposition of that which she had formerly refus- 
ed, since this government could not (as appeared to itself,) 
again propose it. Now the circumstances attendant on the 
settlement of this very question, while so far from involv- 
ing this nation in any just charge of partiality or infirmity 
of deportment, is itself proof enough of the absence of any 
necessity for military demonstration to the world for its 
recognition of our national weight and power. Those who 
contend for the need of such demonstrations, are inconsis- 
tent with the tone of triumph, in some of them at least, 
at the Oregon settlement — attributing, as some did, the 
final course of England to a sense of her interest in avoid- 
ing a collision with this country. A sense of interest on 
her part might have been estimated with sufficient cor- 
rectness without military associations. Moreover, the ob- 
jects of our government were obtained wimout the ast 
military preparation — and, that, when expressions public- 
ly used by the President had Cicated an apparently great- 
er necessity for such preparation than appeared under 
other circumstances. Could we, then, by any amount 
of military demonstration, have procured more of due res- 
spect than was shown by England while v/e were quite 
unarmed, and unguarded in every way, even in vords- ? 
— An indication not very remote as to time, of the res- 
pect in which this country is held, and of its weight 
abroad, is the effect of a protest by General Cass, on 
his own personal responsibihty, against the ratification 
of the (Quintuple treaty ; by allowing which it was 
considered that the position taken by this country, as 

* This term is here used in its vulgar sense. 



Oil Christian Principles. 25 

to the right of other powers to search its vessels, would 
have been compromised. We should like to be informed 
what government, besides that of Mexico, has treated this 
country with disrespect since the war of 1812 — such as to 
render expedient new proofs occasionally of our national 
capacities as indicated by military exploits? Even now, 
which is the most obvious of the results from the recent 
war, the better establishment of the prowess of this na- 
tion, or the diminished estimate of that manifested by 
Mexico? However justice to both nations may assert 
the former, there appears to have been a much stronger 
impression of the latter in the world. Mexico has receiv- 
ed far more justice to her valour — less energetic, less 
directed though it was— from her foe than from other na- 
tions, which, mortified at her unequal competition, have 
withheld the sympathy they promised. 

We hope to have shown that, whatever pretence na- 
tions may put forth as to the expediency of display in 
military adventure to command respect, it appears in the 
light of singular absurdity as coming from this nation. 

We have now animadverted on those features in the 
recent public spirit of this country, and in that of its go- 
vernment, which could not but be deemed as of appropri- 
ate notice, in connexion with the circumstances that ori- 
ginated the war. 

II. We proceed to remark on some of the circumstances 
most striking in a moral aspect in the progress and con- 
duct of the war. 

1. As soon as practicable after information of the first 
collision between the forces of the United States and those 
of Mexico, the Congress of the former declared the coun- 
try to be in a state of war. This was true in a literal 
sense. But when the enemy had retired beyond the Rio 
Grande, which he did after the battles of Palo Alto and 
Resaca de la Palma, the war might have been desisted 
from with greater honour to the United States, both in 
their own estimation, and in that of other nations, than 
characterized their use of the occasion to invade the coun- 
try of their vanquished foe. It is hardly credible that 
Mexico would have attempted another invasion ; for, how- 
ever ready again and again for renewed combat, it was 
5 



26 The Mexican War Revieived, 

thenceforth defensively against invaders. At all events, 
such a result should have been awaited. Conceding that 
there were some reasonable objections to this course, while 
diplomacy continued silent between the two countries, yet 
as the policy of our government was to present repeated 
propositions to that of Mexico, it was manifestly to the pre- 
judice of this policy that our army was permitted to ad- 
vance into the Mexican territory. Not only was the exas- 
peration of the enemy increased, and his affectation of na- 
tional honour more provoked, but his sense of interest and 
self-preservation were not likely to receive the impression 
we would fain produce, if, at the same time, we were feed- 
ing his hopes of retaliation by the very fact of our advance 
into his country, besides that of the comparative smallness 
of our invading force. Not until the capital of Mexico had 
fallen, was the enemy's hope, till then constant as a ves- 
tal lamp, extinguished. His sense of honour could all 
along afford any loss, if only by and by he might gain 
some advantage, at whatever sacrifice to himself; and he 
could not allow himself to doubt that, sooner or later, such 
would accrue to his patience for revenge. Nor is it im- 
probable that he indulged in visions of intervention from 
those great powers, which having acknowledged the in- 
dependence of Texas, were interested in the proviso of 
Mexico, that she should not annex herself to any other 
power. It has been credited to the government by its op- 
ponents, that the unpacific results to its proffer of the olive- 
branch while our army was on the soil of Mexico, were 
in accordance with its aim — a judgment we are afraid to 
pass ! — ^In our advance towards conquest^ no great difference 
would have been made by some delay in crossing the Rio 
Grande, (say, till the next rejection of pacific terms). In 
our advance towards 'peace, by remaining altogether on 
our own side of the river, we would probably have gained 
materially. In our advance towards either; we had lost 
nothing ultimately by even resuming our old 'position at 
Corpus Christi.' 

That there was little anticipated expediency in hasten- 
ing the pursuit of advantages, appears to have been ad- 
mitted by the previous deficiency of military preparation. 
Witness the state of General Taylor's forces antecedently 



On Christian Pri?iciples. 27 

to the actions of the eiglith and ninth of May.* When 
intercourse was temporarily cut off between the general 
and the httle garrison of Point Isabel, there were but a 
few hundred in the latter place. An overwhelming body 
of Mexicans threatened it ; other large detachments of the 
enemy were being landed. In the fort (opposite to Meta- 
morast) where General Taylor was, there were little pro- 
visons remaining. And as Point Isabel was the main de- 
pot, containing almost all the provisions and ammunition 
of his army, it was indispensable that the general should 
eflect a junction with that point. But before he could be 
apprized of its situation, the only means on which the two 
points could depend for intercommunication, consisted in 
the mission of Captain Walker and a few men, who almost 
" against hope," arrived in safety at the general's camp. 
General Taylor had then to adventure the perilous enter- 
prise of advancing to Point Isabel with a small force (his 
main one) divided into three small sections. He arrived 
after two days' march without opposition. But he had ne- 
cessarily left the little garrison of the fort greatly exposed, 
and with little means of defence. The Mexicans on the 
opposite bank, at Metamoras, availed themselves of his 
departure with the main force, by making exertions to de- 
stroy the fort ; while it had also to defend itself for a hun- 
dred hours against assault from surrounding forces, dur- 
ing which time they lost their commander, major Brown. 
It was therefore a point of importance to the general, when 
some days had elapsed, to obtain information of the con- 
dition and prospects of the fort. For the attainment of this 
object he was dependent on such good fortune as might 
attend the exposure of a hundred men under captain May, 
in opening the communication. There was much to sicken 
even the stout hearts of those who, in the interval that fol- 
lowed, awaited their return. May, with his band, escap- 
ed observation from the enemy. On arriving within a few 
miles of the fort, he halted, as directed, and sent to the 
fort a party under captain Walker ; who not returning as 
expected, the party concluding that he had been captured, 

* The whole army on tlie frontier consisted of about 3500 men ; and all 
the land forces of the United States little more than 7000. 

t This fort was afterwards named Fort Brown by General Taylor, in me- 
mory of the commander of the little garrison, who was killed. 



28 The Mexican War Revieioed, 

returned without him to Point Isabel, bearing thither no 
information whatever from the fort, and encountering su- 
perior forces on their way. Walker however appeared 
unexpectedly, with a favorable report from major Brown, 
who had not then fallen. We are not engaged in writing 
a narrative of the events that occurred during the war : 
but these circumstances are referred to as indicative of 
the adoption of slender means of defence at a time when 
the government was anticipating the menaced invasion. 
Nor can the alarm be forgotton which pervaded the United 
States, at the situation of General Taylor, after the war 
had commenced. These limited preparations under such 
expectations, show little idea of accompUshing more 
than a defensive object. The order from the government 
to cross the river, if necessary, ill accorded with such little 
preparation. It could nc^t have been executed without the 
previous successes which were marvellously gained under 
all the circumstances— for it was before the arrival of the 
reinforcements, which were sent for no other object than 
that of relieving the General from the predicament in 
which he was placed between Point Isabel and the fort. 
On the ground, then, even of the defensive attitude of the 
government, we cannot but suspect our protest to be mo- 
rally sustained against shifting the scene of war to the 
opposite banks of the Rio Grande* — a result which, as we 
contend, was needless to the conqueror, and far otherwise 
than consistent with the renewed offer of the olive-branch. 
Alas ! how heedless was it of the peace, the blood, the 
lives, the varied and incalculable interests of many thou- 
sands of human beings ! 

2. After many battles won, and territories gained by the 
United States, it was found that the Mexicans were not 
the more disposed to — what ? seek for peace ? — grant it 
to the United States ? — for our armies truly carried the 
olive-branch wherever they went, although they were on 
the enemy's undisputed soil. The question was then 
mooted in this country, as to a settlement of the question 
of boundary in a new and peculiar way. It was proposed 
that we should abstain from further progress in the ene- 
my's country, partly on principle, partly to spare ourselves 

* The previous order to pursue the enemy across the river, if attacked by 
him, does not imply the perseverance of war on the other side. 



On Christian Principles. 29 

further labour and expense, and that we should remune- 
rate ourselves for that already incurred, by proceeding to 
reckon at once without our host — to draw a line separat- 
ing such Mexican territory as we had taken from such as 
we had not taken, substituting that line for the Rio 
Grande as a boundary. It is but justice to both parties — 
that in favour of the war, and that opposed to it — to re- 
port that this proposed measure was not peculiar to either 
of them. Nor was it proposed in any spirit but that of a 
sincere desire to end the war, a termination of which ap- 
peared to be, for the present, accessible in no other way. 
Leaving the question of the practicability of this course to 
professed statesmen, who indeed disposed of it, our stric- 
ture upon it is applied to its moral merit. It really seems 
that, without the consent of Mexico, we had no justifica- 
tion in adopting any line of boundary beyond the Rio 
Grande ; and that from the time we crossed that river, 
our duty to return to our own side of it was unvarying 
during the whole of our progress, and uncompromised by 
any circumstances attending that progress — least of all by 
our too great pride to return in consequence of the con- 
struction to which it might have been liable. Yet, the 
further we had advanced, and the more prowess we had 
manifested, so much the more real independence and 
sense of honour would have been our proved qualities had 
we then retired. Not doing so, however, we had not a 
better right to define with pickets a boundary any where 
between the Rio Grande and the capital of Mexico, than 
to define on paper one between that city and the frontier 
most remote from our possessions. The fact is, that, so 
long as we adhered to the purpose of remaining on the 
Mexican side of the Rio Grande, there could be no stop- 
ping point, until an adjustment of the difficulties between 
the contending nations should be effected by a treaty. 
The capture of the city of Mexico removed the necessity 
for the continued advance of the army, as the proceedings 
of the Mexican nation, consequent on such an event, 
would be indicative of its final purpose whether or not to 
come to any terms with us. The occasion was very pro- 
perly used by the commanding general, representing the 
American government. The Mexicans were indulged 
with the tardiness natural to them, which they evinced 



30 The Mexican War Revienwd, 

to a degree hardly compatible with a desire that the mili- 
tary possession of their country by the enemy should 
cease. 

The treaty by which the war was brought to a close 
was such as, on the whole, might have been fairly ex- 
pected. If it be an admissible principle that war may 
with propriety be waged against another power by which 
we have been aggrieved, in order to obtain redress, then a 
treaty which deprived Mexico of nearly all the territories 
we had occupied, but which awarded to her a sum of mo- 
ney as a balance arithmetically due to her, is not excep- 
tionable as to these particulars. Among the articles are 
some* borrowed from the treaty of 1785, between this 
country and Prussia, and originated by Franklin, who 
signed the treaty while resident Minister in France. They 
provide for the settlement of future international differen- 
ces by arbitration, and for the mitigation of the severities 
of warfare, should it occur between the parties treating. 
These provisions, without precedent at the period of the 
former treaty, were highly honorable to the nation by 
whose accredited negotiator they were offered, and to in- 
ternational law, to which they imparted a more chastened 
spirit. The repetition of such principles in the latter 
treaty were more than apposite. And, considering the 
position previously taken by Mr. Polk in the Oregon dis- 
pute, against recourse to arbitration as an expedient for 
the settlement of difficulties, his consent to this insertion 
is the more creditable to him, inasmuch as both his pre- 
judice and his sense of committal gave way to a consider- 
ation of humanity with reference to an unseen future. It 
ought not, however, to be overlooked that the spirit which 
entered into the treaty with Prussia was in advance of that 
which treated with Mexico, inasmuch as 7iot all the gen- 
erous provisions comprised in the former were adopted in 
the lattert. That " contained his (Franklin's) philanthro- 

* See tlie 2lst and 22nd articles of the Mexican treaty, 
t In Lyman's " Diplomacy of the United States," it is remarked of tliese 
provisions, that "it does not appear that they have been of any practical 
utility to the world." Possibly, this consideration suggested the omission 
of them in the late treaty. But while the world is advancing, its past defi- 
ciencies should not be assumed as' an earnest of its future conduct. The 
sooner we can say " old things are passed away," the better. — The treaty 
with Mexico has been represented as having been produced in the Ameri- 



On Christian Principles. 31 

pic article against privateering, and in favour of the free- 
dom of trade, and of the protection of private property in 
time of war. The king of Prussia made no objection to 
this article. On the contrary, his ambassador, the Uaron 
de Thulemsier, who signed the treaty, felicitated the com- 
missioners on its being introduced." The 'twenty-third 
article is directed,' said he, ' by the purest zeal in favour 
of humanity. Nothing can be more just than your reflec- 
tions on the noble disinterestedness of the United States of 
America. It is to be desired, that these sublime senti- 
ments may be adopted by all the maritime powers with- 
out exception. The calamities of war will be much sof^ 
tened ; and hostilities often provoked by cupidity and 
the inordinate love of gain, will be of more rare occur- 
rence." Free ships were likewise to make free goods, 
and contraband merchandize was exempted from confis- 
cation. He (Franklin) fondly hoped that these benevo- 
lent principles would be wrought into the law of nations ; 
but the example has not been followed.! The remaining 
provisions of the treaty with Mexico were adapted to the 
accommodation of the two nations, and principally Mexi- 
co, as regarded the protection of society on the frontier. 
On the part of both sides it was a very liberal treaty. At 
the same time, though abounding in humane provisions, 
it was less so than Franklin— and he not a mere theorist, 
but a practical man— would have rendered it. 

3. Not the least important feature in the conduct of the 
administration with reference to the war, is the recom- 
mendation to Congress to authorize by legislation the issue 

can Senate, in the hand-writing of the British Agent in Mexico. Whoewr 
made the extracts from the Prussian treaty by authonty is the party to be 
blamed for the omission of those creditable parts alluded to, unless he was 
expressly desired to omit them. •■ . .u -m- ^u 

*This particular had been originated and adopted by the Northern 

^"tjlred Sparks' Life of Franklin— 1844. To the above extract the follow- 
ing nok is added :-" Washington spoke of this treaty in terms of high com- 
mendation. In a letter to the Count Rochambeau, he said :— The treaty ot 
amity, which has lately taken place between the kmg of Prussia and the 
United States, marks a new era in negotiation. It is the most liberal treaty 
which has ever been entered into between independent powers. It is per- 
fectly original in many of its articles; and should its principles be consider- 
ed hereafter as the basis of connection between nations, it will operate more 
fully to produce a general pacification, than any measure hitherto attempted 
amongst mankind. — July 3lst 1786." 



32 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

of letters of marque* Conceding the propriety of all other 
modes of warfare prevalent among civilized nations, there 
is not a single admissible argument in favour of a legaliz- 
ed molestation of private property on the high seas, the 
thoroughfare of nations : singular it is that the nineteenth 
century (the firsthalf of it we should say — for there is hope 
of the remainder) should either have so little apprehension 
of its own advancement as to tolerate such a system, or, 
while tolerating it, cherish the delusion of its present as- 
sumed position in civilization !t The" more remarkable 
is this, in that the powers by which alone it can be sus- 
tained or put down, are those Anglo-Saxon nations which 
are preeminently commissioned to the diffusion of human- 
ity, and in which the earth's fau'est prospects are, to all 
present appearances, bound up. Are these nations await- 
ing an example from some of less pretensions ?t Would 
that Mexico had set the example when the recent hostili- 
ties broke out ! she had little to sacrifice to the principle. 
Nor even after the course adopted by her government, in 
the offer of commissions to privateers from Spanish colo- 
tiies — effects from which incipient course were all contra- 
vened by the relations existing between Spain and this 
country — would it have been too late to have done so in 
reply to the contemplations of our government. She may 
yet do so. And as expectation is not always prepared for 
the approaching devolopement or revival of a dormant 
principle, let us not, in our vanity, exclude all idea of be- 
ing hailed from quarters whence we little expect it, equal- 
ly to our shame and to our benefit. Eminent will be the 
nation, in the eyes of the contemporary world and of pos- 
terity, which shall first proclaim the lesson that the pri- 
vateering system, however legalized, is an outrage on civi- 
lization, even though adopted as a retaliatory course. Pi- 

* Congress did not act on this part of the President's Message. 

+ The subject was to have been discussed at the Panama Convention, in 
1826, had it been weh attended. 

: It should be mentioned that, in the framing of the first definitive treaty 
between Great Britain and the United States, in 1783, " the American 
Commissioners drew up a series of new articles, chiefly I'elating to com- 
merce, which they were wilUng should be inserted, and which embraced Dr. 
Franklm's philanthropic scheme for protecting private property in time of 
war, and for suppressing the practice of privateering. None of tlaem were 
accepted." Spark's Life of Franklm, 



On Christian Principles. 33 

racy it is ; declared Yfiracy is all that it ought to be. And 
so to have declared it, when the inestimable opportunity 
for so doing was presented at the commencement of the 
Mexican war, would have exalted our government, our 
Congress, and our nation. Nor would such a stand have 
involved this country in the risk of any sacrifice worth 
naming, for, to use the expressions of the President, — " It 
is true that there are but few if any commercial vessels of 
Mexico upon the high seas ; and it is therefore not proba- 
ble that many American privateers would be fitted out, in 
case a law should pass, authorizing* this mode of warfare." 
If it be the duty of our fleets to check violence on the high 
seas as a marine police, their proper duty cannot but in- 
clude the protection equally of Mexican commerce as of our 
otoji, notwithstanding the hostilities existing between the 
two nations. One may be excused for expressing so much 
surprise that, in the provisions of the recent treaty for 
mitigating the inhumanity of future wars, the golden op- 
portunity was not used to procure the abolition of priva- 
teering, by the two nations in common, when the refer- 
ence made to Franklin's treaty could hardly have failed 
to suggest it. 

4. There is a circumstance in the conduct of the ad- 
ministration, while carrying on the war^ that calls for sep- 
arate notice in this series of remarks. The terms of the 
capitulation of Monterey, while they were generous to the 
enemy, in so far as concessions were made to his feelings, 
were likewise, so far as the armistice was concerned, far 
from adverse to the interests of our army, whose suffer- 
ings needed alleviation by repose — comparatively such. 
And what did this respite amount to, as proposed? — mere- 
ly to a cessation from hostilities until a day little later than 
that at which an injunction to renew hostilities could arrive. 
The circumstance that such an order was sent, when it 
could little efiect results, has brought much censure on 
the government, as being expressive of a dissatisfaction 
little called for. The mandate for the cessation of the ar- 
mistice, when so little was to be gained by interrupting it, 
does however admit of this liberal construction — that it was 

* As the other modes of warfare are not considered to require specieJ le-, 
gislation, to authorize them, why should this require it, unless it be, that: 
this is even more unnatural than all others 1 

6 



34 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

deemed expedient to avoid confirming any impression in 
the Mexican mind, that the resources of this government 
were in a state to need any intermission of the contest. 
Still it appears to have escaped the reflection of the govern- 
ment, how ill a moral eflect may be produced on the gen 
eral proceedings of the commander, if he is led, by such 
a course as was their's in this particular, to anticipate the 
refusal of sanction to other measures of like character, on 
occasions when humanity may be even less able to dis- 
pense with them. 

5. In the military conduct of the war, we may with 
feelings of gratulation ascribe to the commanding Generals 
of the American forces, at least as great examples of both 
unavenging and active humanity as the annals of war can 
present. Their deportment has maintained a congruity 
with that part of their vocation which consisted in repre- 
senting a humane country, entitled to expect in her sons 
when abroad the best illustration of this characteristic. 
The magnanimous sacrifices made by General Taylor 
of advantages to the enemy, at Buena Vista* at the risk 
both of loss to his own army, and of compromise to his 
prospect of victory, merely to honor a white flag from a 
" notus Ulj/sses," when, under the circumstances of the 
two armies, it could hardly wear a pacific expression, 
seem almost to transcend a just claim to approbation — ex- 
posing, as it did, his own army (which seemed thrice to have 
lost the battle before it was won) to the perfidy and wan- 
tonness of that tried individual. But great was the self- 
sacrifice to which it also tended.t 

♦ Santa Anna sent a white flag at a period of the action at which his ar- 
my was placed, ^to manifest disadvantage from the American fire, but was 
yet far from being defeated. His real object was presumed by every one, 
before it could be proved, to be merely that of gaining time to remedy the 
disadvantage. He is reported to have even re-commenced his fire before 
the parley had ceased. It is to be hoped that this is an improvement (if 
there can be any) on his breach of faith. Another object gained by tins 
white flag, was die certainty of General Taylor's position, a fire being im- 
mediately opened upon his person. 

t The following handsome testimony, published in some of the public 
journals, is from a young sergeant: — "1 have seen cruelty and inhumanity 
on the part of subordinate ofliicers to their men — inhuman punishments in- 
flicted for slight offences, hul never in the presence of Gen£ral Taylor — who 
was always a kind father and protector to the poor soldier, and whom every 
honest soldier in the army loved. No man of honor who ever served under 
him will charge him with craelty, either to his own troops or to the enemy. 



On Christian Principles. 35 

The chivalry of Scott conceded, after every battle, to 
prisoners who had made themselves conspicuous for mili- 
tary qualities, liberty without parole^ in consideration of 
the degree to which they evinced those very qualities 
which rendered them formidable. It was his wise mode- 
ration and heroic independence, that for a while denied to 
himself and to his elated army, the scarcely resistible 
enjoyment of a triumphant entry into the city of the Monte- 
zumas, in order to spare the feelings of a prostrate foe, 
by yielding to him — thanklessly as it issued — the op- 
portunity of an honorable peace without the walls. He 
declared, moreover, that the great triumph he sought was 
a peace, as honorable to Mexico as to his own country.* 

Various circumstances of exception to thediscipline main- 
tained by the two Generals mentioned, have been pointed at, 
but invariably with a captious spirit. There is indeed one 
of these worthy of notice — namely the refusal of Gen, Scott 
to comply with the request of the foreign Consuls in Ve- 
ra Cruz, that he would grant a respite from the siege till 
the women and children could leave the city. But those 
who have made this a peculiar charge against his fair 
name, have lost sight of the circumstance that before the 
commencement of the siege he had particularly advised 

After the capture of Matamoras, instead of using one of the houses in the 
city as his quarters, he gave them all up to the sick, wounded, and suffering 
soldiers, and slept in his tent on a bed that was not more than four inches 
above the mud and water that surrounded it." * * * " He never turned 
away from a suffering soldier without doing all that he could to relieve and 
cheer him. On the march to Seralvo," continued the youth, " my strength 
gave out, and if it had not been for Gen. Taylor, I might have been left upon 
the road to die or be murdered. But he saw me, and knew from my looks that 
1 was exhausted. He took me up and sat me on his own mule, and 1 rode 
with him in that way for several days.' 

"At one time we were almost out of provisions. We had nothing to eat 
but musty biscuit and magotty pork. An officer went to General Taylor, 
and complained that he could not eat such food. ' Well, sir,' said the Gen- 
eral, ' come and take your dinner with me.' 

" The invitation was gladly accepted, and the officer, anticipating a firs 
rate dinner, dressed himself up, and went to the quarters of the General ; but 
instead of finding a regular dinner table, filled with delicacies, he saw the 
General sitting before a fire, toasting a piece of the same pork on a stick, and 
that, with some musty biscuit and a little bean soup, made the dinner for 
himself and the disappointed officer, who expected to dine on roast beef and 
plum pudding. That gentleman didn't eat any more dinners with General 
Taylor." 

♦ The author is indebted to Mr. Gardiner, the Spanish Secretary of Gen- 
eral Scott, lor information of this circumstance. 



36 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

the removal of the parties in question. His subsequent re- 
fusal was founded on circumstances which led him to sus- 
pect the motives for the application.* It does seem indeed 
that, to one who could not have distrusted his prospect 
of success, the space of halt a day, if even that space was 
indispensable for the object in view, would have made 
but little difference, whatever advantage of a different kind 
could have been taken by the enemy. But it cannot be 
made to appear, that the General was less considerate of 
the situation of women and children, than the most hu- 
mane besiegers of cities, revolting as is a system from 
which events of this nature do, and (as it appears) must 
have birth. 

The conduct of the American forces in general was 
chequered with good and evil, as will hereafter be shown. 
It is hard to determine whjch should be expected to pre- 
dominate. On one hand, it would seem that, in an army 
from a civilized country, savage conduct would be the 
probable exception. Yet, on the other, in a band trained 
to the most effective means of violence and blood-shedding, 
it really does seem rather exacting on human nature, thus 
inflamed and thus exposed, to expect from it other than 
the reverse. According to General Scott, indeed, there 
were but "few bad men in this army" against whom "the 

* "I enclose a copy of a memorial received last night, signed by the con- 
suls of Great Britain, France, Spain, and Prussia, within Vera Cruz, asking 
me to grant a truce to enable the neutrals, togetlier with Mexican women 
and children, to withdraw from the scene of havoc about them. I shall re- 
ply, the moment that an opportunity may be taken, to say — First, That a 
truce can only be granted on the application of Governor Morales, with a 
view to surrender; second. That in sending safeguards to the different con- 
suls, beginning as far back as the 13th instant, I distinctly admonished them, 
particulaily the French and Spanish consuls — and, of course, through the 
two, the other consuls — of the dangers that have followed ; third, That 
although, at that date, I had already refused to allow any person whatsoever 
to pass the line of investment either way, yet the blockade had been left open 
to the consuls and other neutrals to pass out to their respective ships of war up 
to the 22d instant; and, fourth, I shall enclose to the memorialists a copy of 
my summons to the governor, to show that I had fully considered the im- 
pending hardships and distresses of the place, including those of women and 
children, before one gun had been fired in that direction. The intercourse 
between the neutral ships-of-war and the city was stopped at the last-men- 
tioned date by Commodore Perry, with my concurrence, which I placed on 
the ground that that intercourse could not fail to give to the enemy moral 
aid and comfort," Extract from Gen. Scott's despatch to the Secretary of War. 



On Christian Principles. 37 

safeguard of martial law" was required.* The Comman- 
der-in-chief is perhaps the individual least likely to be in- 
formed of the number of misdeeds perpetrated by his army. 
Tales told in school or in camp, though exceeding in num- 
ber those ever told out of the same, do nevertheless come 
far short of what might with truth be told. But besides 
this, a general must be, from necessity, a special pleader 
for his forces. They are his limbs: and if, in the instance 
of every capitally offending one, he should "cut it off and 
cast it from him," he might soon be left desolate in a strange 
land. Or, supposing the guilty men of his army to be un- 
der sentence, according to the magnitude of their respect- 
ive offences, and supposing all the remainder appointed to 
carry it into effect, it might be matter of speculation to- 
night which half of the army would be strong enough to 
hang or flog the other half on the morrow. We mean to 
say that the idea of a just infliction of punishment in an 
army appears to be an absurdity. An army is committed 
to its general to take care of — not to diminish or enfeeble 
it. It is not the end of discipline to produce such results. 
Could any government, determined on the invasion of a 
country, accomplish its object as well by sending thither 
a mob without discipline?^ — would it be at the trouble and 
expense of subjecting to discipline those who composed it, 
if the purpose of it was merely the regulation of their moral 
deportment? We trow not. They would merely receive 
a commission to go and do all the mischief they could on 
the hostile soil. Discipline, then, is merely to qualify the 
armed band for its avocation. That our forces fulfilled 
not only their vocation, but its collateral temptations pre- 
sented to every passion, there is too much proof, little as 
is told out of camp. They have proved that war at this 
advanced period of the present century is like war at any 
period in the preceding one ; and have rendered the infer- 
ence too obvious that, whatever diminution of inhumanity 
has been effected in the modes and circumstances of war- 
fare during recent centuries, yet that the system is scarcely 
susceptible of further improvement in those respects ; and 
that until war is abolished, society in the land invaded 

♦ General Scott's proclamation of April 11th, 1847. 



38 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

will never be secure fiorn, but will rather have assurance 
of, excesses such as those which pervaded the Mexican 
war — excesses which appear as properties inseparable 
from the current of war. Some illustrations of the life 
led by our soldiery (and is this designation often em- 
ployed in a favorable sense ?) will be presented when we 
hereafter proceed to consider the evils of the war. Jus- 
tice requires it to be noticed at this point, that general 
report, and consequently public opinion, has discrimina- 
ted between the conduct of the regular forces and that 
of the volunteers, in a manner most unfavourable to the 
latter. 

6. As regards the Mexican deportment during the war, 
little allusion can be made to that of their commanding 
generals on the present occasion, there having been too 
slight a representation of it on which to found observation 
of any extent. To this may be added the little compe- 
tency there can be to judge of the circumstances in which 
they were placed, and the difficulty of feeling as they did. 
in their own country invaded. The deportment of Santa 
Anna with reference to the white flag sent by him to Gen. 
Taylor, (which has been alluded to,) is, as far as we can 
speak with confidence, an exception to the usual bearing 
of those in high command during this war, as well as to 
the general character of modern warfare. So likewise 
was his last step before abandoning the city of Mexico — 
setting at liberty and arming all the prisoners and convicts 
in that city, expressly that they might assail the Ameri- 
cans after the surrender, and pay no respect to the terms 
of capitulation. The reviewer, as well as the historian of 
this war, cannot hasten too soon, for his own gratification, 
and that of his reader, to scenes in this drama, of which 
the women of Mexico were the heroines. 

" The angels of Buena Vista" were not long without a 
minstrel to tell their deeds, though in "a strange and 
northern tongue." The following brief but pregnant pas- 
sage contains the story that "opened his saying upon the 
harp :"* — "A letter from Mexico states, that at the terrible 
fight of Buena Vista, Mexican women were seen hovering 
near the field of death, for the purpose of giving aid and 

* Psalm xlix. verse 4. 



On Christian Principles. 39 

succor to the wounded. One poor woman was surrounded 
by the maimed and suffering of both armies, ministering 
to the wants of Americans as well as Mexicans, with im- 
partial tenderness."* 

Again, according to a writer in the New Orleans Delta 
— "During the siege of Monterey, there were constant 
and affecting evidences of the kindness of the Mexican 
women afforded to the soldiers of the American army, 
regulars and volunteers. When our men and officers 
were passing through the streets of the city, during the 
most exciting intervals of the battle, they would run out 
of their houses with baskets filled with bread and cakes, 
and distribute the contents among the officers and sol- 
diers, without the reception of fee or reward for their 
kindness. And it can be easily imagined that these were 
highly acceptable donations, inasmuch as many of us at 
the time were very much reduced in our stock of provis- 
ions. There were also many of us during the siege, and 
after we had entered the city, in different yards in the 
place, where we fired from the tops of the houses upon 
the Mexican troops, stationed in the public squares or pla- 
zas. Here too our toils and lassitudes were greatly soothed 
by the tender assiduities of the Mexican females. There 
were some of them still remaining in the houses which 
backed upon these yards, who cheerfully tendered their 
services to cook for us, receiving a small amount of com- 
pensation from those who had money, and to those who 
were destitute of means, handing food without any reward 
whatever. The humanity of the Mexican women was 
also brightly manifested during the most intense heat of 
the action, in causing the wounded among the American 
soldiers to be removed out of the streets, where they lay 
weltering in their blood, into their own houses, where' they 
carefully and tenderly dressed their wounds, and provided 
them with food and drink. They also evinced the most 
ardent devotion to such of the wounded soldiers on the 
American side as were taken prisoners by the Mexicans, 
and sent to their hospitals. They dressed their wounds, 
washed their clothes, and brought them fruit of different 
kinds, without any charge for their pains." 

* See Whittier's verses on " The Angels of Buena Vista." 



40 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

Nor does this romance of the sex end before Hfe has 
been sacrificed : 

" Where I was stationed," says one writing from Monterey, 
after its capture, to the Louisville Courier, " with our left wing 
in one of the forts, on the evening of the 2 1 st, I saw a Mexican 
woman busily engaged in carrying bread and water to the 
wounded men of both armies. I saw the ministering angel 
raise the head of a wounded man, give him water and food, and 
then carefully bind up his ghastly wound with a handkerchief 
from her own head. After having exhausted her supplies, she 
went back to her house to get more bread and water for others. 
As she was returning on her mission of mercy, to comfort other 
wounded persons, I heard the report of a gun, and saw the poor 
innocent creature fall dead ! I think it was an accidental shot 
that struck her. I would not be willing to think otherwise. It 
made me sick at heart, and turning from the scene, I involunta- 
rily raised my eyes towards heaven, and thought, great Grod ! 
and is this toar ? Passing the spot the next day, I saw her 
body still lying there, with the bread by her side, and the broken 
gourd, with a few drops of water still in it — emblems of her er- 
rand. We buried her ; and while we were digging her grave, 
cannon balls flew around us like hail." * 

Of the lower classes of Mexican women, hear an ob- 
server : 

* It may be an interesting inquiry to the student of human nature, in what 
respect and to what extent this was characteristic of Mexican women in par- 
ticular. Would it be characteristic of those in a northern latitude to hesi- 
tate so to act 1 They would no doubt have been ready and willing, had it 
occurred to them. But their imagination is less suggestive to their resolution. 
In the days of Chivalry there appear to have been two constituting elements 
of the quality oi chivalvy : courage was one — the other consisted in the maTV- 
ner of performing an action. Now it need hardly be doubted that woman 
elsewhere, perhaps anywhere, would have been possessed of the requisite 
courage to act as woman did at Monterey, Buena Vista, and elsewhere in 
Mexico. Nor is it derogating from the women of Mexico to ascribe to their 
sex, generically, that with regard to which it was so nobly represente d on 
those occasions. Among the natives of northern latitudes, the question as 
to a course of proceeding is usually one of either duty or expediency, while 
among Southerners it is rather one of either aspect or association. The idea 
of so acting in the scenes above mentioned, and the instant judgment that 
such was the suitable time for self exposure, (not excluding sense of duty, 
but at the same time not so exclusively implymg it as elsewhere,) was a fea- 
ture of manners, in which may be observed the influence of climate and the 
transmission of character from the land of Isabella, not without engraftment 
from the generous Saracen. 

The effect of climate and of the luxuriant aspect of nature in contributing 
to educe the phases of character in question, can hardly be doubted. Alison 
has remarked, in substance, that until the history of the British in India shall 



On Christian Principles. 41 

" I felt much interested iu the numerous camp women, those 
devoted creatures who follow them through good and evil ; and 
it grieved me to see them, worn down with fatigue, moving at a 
snail's pace, their heavy burdens almost weighing them to the 
earth. These women, like the Indians, are the slaves of men — 
a slavery they submit to under the all-powerful influence of affec- 
tion. In addition to their bedding and wearing apparel, they 
pack upon their backs the food and the utensils to cook ic in ; 
and, wor» out as they are by the toils of the day, whilst their 
husband or lover sleeps, they prepare his repast." 

Of the Mexican forces generally, it is matter of deep 
regret that no report of any other conspicuous moral fea- 
ture has reached us from the late seat of war, than this 
— that they rarely scrupled to maim and slay those who 
lay in their way, on the field, wounded.* It was in this 
manner that Colonel Clay, son of the eminent leader of 
opposition to this very war, was slain at Buena Vista. 

Thus much has it appeared apposite to remark on the 
moral features that were most striking in the conduct and 
progress of the war. 

The triumphs of genius and science in the prosecution 
of the war, are subjects scarcely appropriate to the pur- 
pose of this review. Apart from the little wisdom to be 

be worthily written, the British character, as illustrated by romantic and dis- 
interested exploit, will never be duly estimated. So far as this remark in- 
cludes any allusion to valoar, it can scarcely contemplate variations in the 
degree of it displayed in different climes. The writer has in view peculiar 
(esthetic advantages in the style and mode of its exhibition, to which the 
scenery and climate must have influentially contributed. They do not ap- 
pear to have been indebted for impulse to any admirable qualities in the foe. 
To the latter these remarks do not apply : for to climate and scene cannot, 
of course, be attributed more than a tendency to impart impulse to the mani- 
festation, and farm of manifestation, of an already existing spirit, native or 
transplanted. 

It may be observed of the people in the southern States of this Union, 
that they are as mediate in character as in climate, and participate in north- 
ern and southern attributes, though possessing them in a less degree than 
tlieir extreme neighbours respectively. They are more northern in their 
tendencies than the races in corresponding latitudes, which is owing to their 
English origin. 

* The Mexicans have not been singular in this respect among modem 
nations ; though discarded in theory from modern warfare, it has been often 
practised — for example, by the Russians in the Polish war, and by the 
French at Waterloo. A British officer, Capt. Ommancy, (a personal friend 
of the present writer,) when lying on the ground dangerously wounded by . 
a musket ball, was pierced four times by lancers. He survived for eighteen 
years, during which period the ball was never extracted. 

7 



42 The Mexican War Reviewed^ 

associated with judgments other than professional on mili- 
tary operations, we take leave to observe, that whatever 
greatness, intellectual or physical, may be proved by mili- 
tary deeds to have been attained by the faculties of man 
— and marvellous unquestionably has been the greatness 
thus proved, even in the recent war — it is less a matter 
of congratulation to human nature than any other form 
of prowess. Yet who can withhold admiration at Tay- 
lor's ever-readiness to engage against whatever o(?ds, and 
with whatever materials, and his effectual coups de main 
— and that attainment in military science with which 
Scott predestines (if one may so speak) his results, as if 
their occurrence was of mathematical necessity. 

An ascription of a different kind may be claimed for the 
generals of Mexico. The productions of their pen, profes- 
sional and diplomatic, afford a most classical treat. To 
wield " the set phrase of speech,"' 

"And uncouth politics to measures mould,"* 

are among their refined accomplishments, and often mark- 
ed with an artistic excellence of the highest order.t 

The reader need not be surprised at the brevity of the 
observations that have been herein presented on military 
features in the war. But is it not remarkable how much 
almost every man has to say, and with confidence, respect- 
ing merit in the conduct of war, or of a battle that is of 
universal interest, such as Waterloo — however confessedly 
unable to venture an opinion upon a game of chess? It is 
to all appearance assumed that common sense and ordi- 
nary information are alone adequate to bear on military 
questions. How many give utterance to their sentiments 
under this previous impression ! But besides an utter in- 
utility accruing to the interests of truth in military history, 
from conversations on naval and military affairs, among 
other than military or naval men, it should be considered 
what moral injury to the human feelings is derived from 
the earnestness and the general prevalence of such con- 
versations, considering the degree to which national rivalry 

*A line from "All the Talents" — a satirical poem, published in 1807, 
and attributed to Canning, but not published among his poetical works. 

+ It is due to truth to repeat the information received since writing the 
above, from the best source, that these documents are generally prepared by 
parties holding a military rartk merely. 



On Christian Principles. 43 

and ambition are nourished by them, and the shade into 
which those impulses invariably throw the evils of war. 
Nor is that all ; for where those feelings are not excited 
by them, the same blinding and blunting effects are cast 
over the sense and sensibihty by stimulated conceptions, 
and images too chastened, of warlike deeds. A truthful 
apprehension of the nature and character of war is impe- 
ded by the many factitious associations that gather around 
the idea of the military profession, and the augmentation 
of force accruing to those associations from uninterrupted 
tradition. 

To this review of the origin and conduct of the Mexi- 
can war, it was our design to have added a chapter on the 
evils resulting from it. But, independently of its inconve- 
nient length, the evils to be treated of are of the same na- 
ture as those by which every war is, and must be, more 
or less characterized. Illustrations of them are presented 
in various publications — among which the reader is par- 
ticularly referred to the "Peace Manual," and the "Book 
of Peace," both published by the American Peace Society, 
(the former being gratuitously distributed.) Much of the 
suffering and other evil occasioned by the war with Mex- 
ico is specifically exposed in the Peace Advocate.* 

The manifold evils in question may be thus classified : 

1. Sufferings of the soldiers, irrespectively of those ne- 
cessary to the battle-field. 

2. Sufferings from wounds and mutilations, not only of 
soldiers, but of peaceable citizens, of all ages, and of both 
sexes, during sieges. 

3. Vindictive bloodshed on the field of battle, irrespec- 
tive of the contest for victory, and on other occasions. 

4. Wanton injuries to women. 

5. MiUtary habits of rapine and plunder. 

6. Domestic afflictions. 

7. The more than servile humiliation of the private sol- 
dier, and his constant exposure to arbitrary ill-usage, 

8. The destruction of life, or of the capacity for the en- 
joyment of life. 

* This is a periodical, edited by the Rev. George Beckwith, Secretaiy of 
the American Peace Society, and published every second month at the of- 
fice of the Society, 21 Comhill, Boston. The subscription is $1 00 for two 
years. 



44 The Mexican War Revieioed, 

9. The waste of national wealth. 

10. The effect of war on the interests of morality and 
religion in the contending nations. 

Notwithstanding all this "vast variety of woe," it has 
been an unquestionable result of the recent war, that that 
cause, in the triumph of which civiHzation was most inter- 
ested, has triumphed ; the proofs of which it is not neces- 
sary to enter upon. 

It has indeed been contended, as for a principle histori- 
cally established, that wars have been indispensable to 
the advancement of civilization ; decisive victories inva- 
riably (as maintained) establishing the ascendancy of bel- 
ter principles.* That the wars carried on in the circle of 
civilization have most commonly been so available, we 
need not question. But that there is on that account any 
necessity for wars, whether in the form of a compulsory 
instrument, or of an appointed condition, we feel bound 
to deny on behalf of God's pledges to suflering humanity. 

Besides, what advancement in ideas appear in those 
tribes which are ordinarily in a state of war? If wars have 
advanced the world, it is only inasmuch as they have 
been overruled to that end by Him who " bears up the pil- 
lars" of human society, lest it should be " dissolved"! thus 
making "the wrath of man" to "praise" him, while "the 
remainder of wrath he restrains."! A portion of mankind 
is predestined to advance in civilization, whether there be 
wars or not, however these may retard its progress, if left 
to their natural operation. Wars, like other evils, may be 
commissioned with impulses favourable to certain ends. 
But it is, on the whole, in spite of them, that a part of the 
human family advances to its destined moral attainment. 

And now a word or two on the subject oijust wars : — 
The justice of a declaration of war cannot justify the hor- 
rible consequences, physical and moral, which are fore- 
known to be attendant on a state of war. The abstract 
justice of a course of conduct renders it moral so far. But 
the law of love has a say in every question of morality. 
" The moral law transfigured by love,"ll is Schiller's defi- 

* See Victor Cousin — " Inirod. a V histoire de la PJdlosophie.'" 1. x. — a most 
interesting chapter. 

tPs. Ixxv. 3. jPs. Ixxvi. 10. 
II " The moral imperative, transfigured by love," is (according to the trans- 



On Christian Principles. 45 

nition of Chribtianity, little as he recognized the Christian 
scheme for man's renovation. If then justice be transfi- 
gured by charity, revenge and retaliation find no place ; 
and if, in cases where punishment is necessary, it be 
not so transfigured, he who, from whatever sense of jus- 
tice, inflicted it, or contributes to the infliction of it, is, 
morally, his own executioner to that extent. And further, 
" hatred is a prolonged suicide" — a maxim constructed by 
the same philosopher-poet* — one that is of not less appro- 
priate application to instances of animosity between com- 
munities, than to instances between individuals. 

Again, in whatever sense of right wars may originate, 
there is ever danger of injustice in undertaking them. 
Such enterprises are not subject to the judgment of any 
disinterested Court, but, when least unjust, are prompted 
almost invariably by a spirit of retaliation in the party de- 
claring war. The absence of self-conviction with regard 
to the injustice of a war, does not abate responsibility for 
it. Moreover, not only is humanity compromised by the 
most just war, but such a war provides, as undeniably as 
any other, for the exercise of inhumanity and of every bad 
passion. And, by the laws of Divine Providence, crimi- 
nality never escapes retribution in some form, unless ar- 
rested by moral repentance. Thus, communities, and par- 
ticularly nations, have less prospect of escaping retribution, 
owing to the less likelihood of their repentance. For to 
bring a nation to repentance, even for a solitary national 
sin, is a work not unlike that of converting a world. And 
it is probable that no nation ever repented of its wars, 
and the bloodshed resulting from them, unless on account 
of ill success, or want of compensation for the sacrifice 
incurred in them. Nor, in those cases in which the pub- 
lic sentiment of a period has condemned the wars carried 
on and the conquests achieved in a former period, is it at 
all usual for atonement to be rendered to the injured na- 
tion, if there ever was a case in which it was thought of. 

It may be justly complained that the conduct of our go- 
vernment towards Mexico has not been such as does jus- 

lator, Mr. Weiss) the literal equivalent to Schillers expression. See the in- 
troduction to his translation of Schiller's ".Esthetic Letters, Essays, and Phil- 
osophical Letters." 

* Philos. Let.— On Love. 



46 The Mexican War Reviewed^ 

lice to the character of our people. That is to say, the 
people having herein contradicted their social character, 
the government has preferred to adopt and represent this 
impulsive contradiction, rather than the niore ordinary de- 
portment which characterizes our people. There is not a 
land in which the members of society are more liberal 
than in this with reference to the concession of private 
rights and privileges ; though diflferent sections of the coun- 
try may differently strike observation as respects this fea- 
ture. There is no country in which social misunderstand- 
ings are more easy of removal, through the accessible dis- 
position of the people, and their ill-satisfaction to allow, 
longer than can be avoided, the existence of mortified 
feeling in a neighbour, from conduct by which the latter 
may have been even slighted — and whatever difference 
there may be in the position and quality of the parties. — 
If, for the governments of the United States and Mexico, 
we substitute the idea of two individuals analogously cir- 
cumstanced, the course pursued by one of the parties, 
namely, the American, might expected to be this : — a dis- 
sension having arisen on a matter which none could set- 
tle for the parties but themselves, the weaker party hav- 
ing a morbid sense of injury, and refusing not only a res- 
toration of the good terms previously existing, but even 
the intercourse requested by the stronger party for the set- 
tlement of the difficulty — the latter, if acting in accordance 
with the prevailing sentiments of society in this country, 
would simply clear himself with reference to the premises, 
and intimate that the continuance of the misunderstand- 
ing was not his fault, g^nd would avoid occasion for colli- 
sion ; though it need not follow that he would abandon 
his position, or his right, or his possession, (if he held it.) 
We are not, it is true, supposing any extreme case ; the 
matter before us does not appear to require it. Such how- 
ever is the form which the principle of self-respect is most 
usually expected to assume in this country. That prin- 
ciple has, in every community, some regular forms of self 
exhibition, but varying as much as the regions of the earth 
in climate and productions. The varieties of our own cli- 
mate, while symbolical of the variations of disposition in 
the people, are not, in this particular, met by an equal 
variation in the national habit of thought. There are in- 



On Christian Principles. 47 

deed among us two somewhat dissonant manifestations 
of the principle now before us, the discriminating line be- 
tween which corresponds with the broadest one of lati- 
tude in the Union, distinguishing, as it does, the idea of the 
North from that of the South. The ideal of the former is 
the course most consistent with morality ; that of the lat- 
ter is the course which presents the best aspect as to man- 
ners.* Both descriptions would concur in the course 
which we have assigned to the party representing this 
country, in relation to its sensitive neighbour. We have 
nothing to do with exceptions, however numerous, to the 
deportment which has the ascendant approval. Testing 
the controversy between the two nations by the assumed 
analogy — as we cannot illustrate the case by the supposi- 
tion of a la7id dispute between individuals, that being one 
that law provides for, and it is otherwise with our present 
hypothesis — there is no difficulty in marking out the course 
of conduct towards Mexico which would have most cor- 
rectly represented the manners and sentiments prevalent 
throughout this country. The national duty therefore 
at the period of the crisis, viewed in the light of the fore- 
going test, was opposed to the movement beyond the station 
at Corpus Christi. At the same time it might with propriety 
have been not only notified to Mexico what boundary we 
claimed, but further intimated that, for whatever length of 
time our arms might lie peaceably on that spot, our claim 
would not be thereby abridged. Had an appeal been made 
to the deliberation of our people, on the question between 
this course and that which was pursued, their instincts 
and habits of thought would most probably have suppres- 
sed those casual impulses which might cause a hesitation 
with regard to the former. We have not yet supposed 
any extreme case. Such a one could only have occurred, 
in the event of Mexico endeavouring to drive our army 
beyond the Nueces, or to prevent the legitimate effects of 
our jurisdiction in the territories we were actually occu- 
pying. We cannot include among these effects the put- 

* It is not assumed that the standeird of either is the best. But such are 
the ideas which enter into and characterize the Ufe of each respectively. 
Similar discriminations appear in some " Philosophical Letters on North 
and South," addressed to Mr. G. P. Marsh, by "a Northern man with 
Southern citizenship." 



48 The Mexican War Reviewed, 

ting down of the Mexican custom-house at Brazos Santi- 
ago, the suddenness of which notice to quit was itself in- 
consistent with the idea oi preserving the peace, which if 
not a definition oi jurisdictio?i. is at least its primary end. 
What ought to have been our deportment m the event of 
what we have admitted as an extreme case, is subject to 
the rule of conduct implied by a prohibition of war, offen- 
sive or defensive. And an observance of this principle in- 
volves neither the retreat nor the unresisting surrender of 
the army of Corpus Christi, but the non-existence of such 
a band there. And if called upon to show the practical 
application of the theory, in case a Mexican army invad- 
ed that part of the country, we have only to reply — first, 
that, if there was unlikelihood of it while we had so small 
a force there, that unlikelihood is increased in the suppos- 
ed absence of all our forces ; — and secondly, the trial of 
the pacific principle in its unqualified extent is all that 
we ask, and the least that we accept, in order to sustain 
the theory. If in some suitable case, such as the recent 
one between this country and Mexico, the two parties 
would each offer to concede the point to the other, or if 
one of the parties, less deficient in generosity than the 
other, were so to act, it might introduce a new epoch in 
international manners, and relieve politicians of that nice 
responsibility and difficulty from which they at present 
suffer whenever the national "honour" is the only mate- 
rial consideration. Whatever difficulty there might be in 
the way of introducing this policy in cases where the ter- 
ritory in dispute is of value (in which ev'ent arbitration is 
the most apposite course) it would say little for the "honour" 
of human nature, if the same difficulties were permitted to 
have place in cases where, not the territory, but national 
honour, or little besides that, is involved. It is not pre- 
sumed that the people of the United States would, in the 
present state of human sentiments, be prepared for such a 
mode of concession, if only proposed while a matter is in 
controversy, and especially if proposed to be made to a 
stronger power than Mexico ; in which cases they would 
consider the motive liable to questionable construction by 
the opposite party and by the world. But had the Presi- 
dent proposed it to the country as related to a considera- 
tion of the mortified state of Mexican feeling, and accora- 



On Christian Principles. 49 

panied with the understanding that the concession was to 
be conditional on the return of Mexico to an amicable de- 
portment towards this country, and that, imtil tlum, any 
attempt by her to exercise jurisdiction in the territory pro- 
posed to be conceded would be resisted by this nation, 
there is little doubt that the country would have assent- 
ed. Texas would probably have been inclined to object, 
in her temptation to exult over Mexico; but in her grati- 
tude for the act of annexation, she would scarcely have 
opposed the general sense of the American nation, had it 
been expressed as we have contemplated. But indepen- 
dently of the view that might be taken by Texas, although 
our government considered it as binding on the national 
course, yet since the boundary of Texas was unsettled, 
and was not an implied condition of annexation, it was 
not incumbent on the government to treat the matter as 
one of Texan interest.* There is, it is acknowledged, a 
literal incongruity between the circumstances of the Mex- 
ican question, as it actually was, and the form assumed 
for it in the above argument. That is, we have treated it 
as an implied question of boundary between ourselves and 
Mexico on the west side of Texas ; whereas Mexico claim- 
ing to the Sabine, that is, the whole of Texas, would treat 
upon no question as to the western frontier of Texas. But 
had the government of this country acted in the mode we 
have imagined, it can hardly be surmised that Mexico 
would have persisted in the untenable attitude of a threaten- 
ing re-conqueror of Texas, now united with this couiury, 
after being forced to abandon that State while it was isolated 
and single-handed. Besides, on the holding out of such 
an amicable arrangement by this country, the sentiment 
and influence of all nations would have been added to the 
scale in which would have been thus laid the interests of 
peace—nor confined to locality, inasmuch as the contem- 
plated event would have obtained the force of precedent. 
And although the nations are yet far behind the point 
they claim to have attained in humanity, yet it would be 
doing them injustice to doubt that they would have made 
the best use in their power of so favorable an opportunity 

* If so, then any frontier State in the Union might consider the Federal 
compact violated, when a new boundary is run, as between Maine and 
Canada. 

8 



50 The Mexican War Reviewed^ 

for the improvement of the epoch, if not the constitution 
of a new one. 

In conclusion, it may be remarked, that the war, which 
we have been engaged in reviewing, was, previously to a 
discovery of the gold region, calculated to strike the future 
historian as involving little more than a continental impor- 
tance. A loorld-historical character now belongs to it ; 
particularly if, as appears in the highest degree probable, 
the discovery of the gold region is a material event in the 
scheme of Divine Providence for the renovation of the 
East — inclusive of the restoration of the Jews to their own 
land. — Through the geographical circumstance in ques- 
tion, civilization and the gospel will be diffused over the 
Western side of this continent ; and increasing intercourse 
Avith the Asiatic nations will bring these in a vast degree 
under those influences. If this were all that is in pros- 
pect, the era in which the first impulse has been given to 
such destinies, is of the greatest magnitude that history 
can ascribe to it. Such is the i?idirect contribution to ap- 
parent prospects, by the solitary event under notice. And 
this very bearing suggests, with no slight force, the direct 
manner in which the event may subserve the purposes of 
the Most High. Doubtless he has laid that golden region 
under tribute from the beginning, either to send forth the 
ships — the ships charged to bring his people to the haven 
where they would be, or to be an Ophir to Jerusalem re- 
stored, if it was not the Ophir of King Solomon's day. 
Not a little remarkable is it, that this region has been veil- 
ed from the eye of avarice, until the period when it would 
be tributary to the divine counsels, and morally useful to 
the world. Could the vain searchers for El Dorado in 
former times, have foreseen the result and its rationale, 
they had been gross indeed, had they not acquiesced in 
this economy, and "vindicated the ways of God to men," 

To carry speculation on the result somewhat further ; — 
That England will be possessor of the present Asiatic and 
prim ipal African dependencies of Turkey — an event na- 
tural in respect to her Eastern interests, and in view of 
her moral influence in those regions— may be confidently 
anticipated. Indeed, as we have elsewhere remarked, she 
"is expected in the East." Under such circumstances, 
should they occur, the whole of Asia (excepting Tartary) 
will be under the influences of the Anglo-Saxon, to an ex- 



The Means of Preventiiig War. 51 

tent scarcely admitting of limitation. The wall of obdu- 
rate exclusiveness by which China has not only shut out 
whatever is not assimilated to herself, but concealed what 
it may be the interest of humanity to discover, and the in- 
tention of prophecies to declare, will be then shattered to 
its foundation by the moral influences both from the East 
and from the West. To which ever sea she turns, even 
now, the Anglo-Saxon is her nearest neighbour. The 
ships that bear exotic wealth to her, and are messengers 
to the ends of the earth, are his. From no other tutor will 
she derive her new civilization, if she is to have one. By 
no other powers will she be politically influenced, than the 
two branches of this chosen race. May God grant that, 
aside from their prospective co-operation for the realization 
of His written will, the peculiarity of their position may 
not engender opposite ends, jealousy and strife. 



ON THE MEANS OF PREVENTING WAR. 

An Essay on some of the means by which the evil of 
war may be prevented, may be a not inappropriate supple- 
ment to the preceding review. The following enumera- 
tion of means contributive to that end, may perhaps cover 
the whole ground : 

1. A diff"usion of the moral power of Christianity. 

2. A direction of the special attention of society to the 
eflfects of war, and to the principles of peace. 

3. Peace Societies and Conventions. 

4. A Congress of nations. 

5. Arbitration — both as an habitual resort, and as the 
subject of special treaties. 

6. The disarmament of nations. 

7. Unfettered commerce. 

It is only to a few of these that we at present address 
remark ; after which the subject of civil war shall receive 
attention. 

I. On the subject of Peace Societies, it is but necessary 
to exhibit their efficiency. Hear the plea of the Ameri- 
can Peace Society, in the following extracts from one of 
its publications :* 

♦ A tract entitled, " Shall I give to the cause of Peace T' 



52 The Means of Preventing War. 

"The general tone of feeling on this subject in the East and 
North, was once as bad as it now is at the West ; and the change 
of public opinion which has actually abolished militia drills in 
some of the New England States, and in all reduced it well 
nigh to a nullity, may be traced mainly to the efforts made by 
the friends of peace at a very smad cxpen.^e. During its first ten 
years here, this cause received less than $500 a year, for the 
next ten years little more than $1,000 a year, and from its ori- 
gin in 1815 to the present hour, hardly $50,000 in all. With an 
addition of $10,000 a year for the last ten years, or $5,000 a 
year for twenty years past, we might have diffused over the ris- 
ing West, over the whole country, such pacific sentiments as 
would, under God. have saved us not only from this crusade 
against Mexico, but from danger of war with any other nation. 

" Now, in what way could five or ten thousand dollars a year, 
$100,000 in all, have been spent to better purpose? We dispar- 
age no form of charity to the | oor or the suffering, no enterprise 
of Christian benevolence at home or abroad ; but tell us where 
such a sum has done, or is likely to do, a tenth part of the good 
that would have been secured by the prevention of this single 
war. The cause of foreign missions is supported at an annual 
cost to Christendom of some $2,500,000 ; but can all the mis- 
sionaries now among the heathen do good enough in one year, or 
twenty years, to counterbalance the manifold evils of this war? 
Nine or ten millions are annually expended in our country to 
support public worship ; and how many years must all our min- 
isters and churches, of every name, with their varied instrumen- 
talities, labor to repair in full the injury done by this brief, dis- 
tant war, to the spiritual inteiests of our own people alone? 
Nor, besides the boundless sweep of its social, political and mo- 
ral evils, is even its waste of property, though the least of all its 
calamities, to be entirely overlooked, especially in an argument 
touching money. War generally wastes twice as much as it costs ; 
but hardly any body expects this war, even if stopped in a month, 
to cost ourselv'S alone less than $150,000,000 in the end, one- 
third of which must come from professed Christians, the church- 
members of our land. Here is the economy that refused aid to 
the cause of peace ; — rather than give five or ten thousand dollars 
a year to prevent ail wars, we sacrifice in a single war of two 
years twenty thousand times that sum, and one-third of it all from 
the pockets of the church. ##**#* 

'• Prevention is our grand aim, also our only hope ; and with 
adequate means, we cannot doubt the possibility or the moral cer- 
tainty of saving our country henceforth from all war. Had this 



The Means of Preventing War. 53 

cause received for the first ten years here ten thousand dollars a 
year instead of four or five hundred, and for the last twenty years 
thirty thousand a year in phice of two or three, it might by this 
time have so far christianized public sentiment through the na- 
tion, as well nigh to insure us against war through all coming 
time. #**##* 

" In 1837-8 we were in most imminent danger of a war with 
Mexico ; and Ex-President Adams, in a published letter, express- 
ly attributed our escape to the timely and efiicient efforts made 
by peace societies. We were exposed in the course of a few 
years to war with England in three instances, — the Canadian 
troubles, the North-eastern boundary, and the Oregon dispute ; 
and, had public opinion in the two countries been what it was fifty 
or even thirty years before, no skill of diplomacy could have 
prevented a conflict. The general peace of Europe, after twen- 
ty-two years of war that are supposed to have sacrificed eight or 
ten million lives and some forty thousand million dollars in all, 
has been preserved nearly thirty-three years, ever since, and only 
since, the commencement of efforts in this cause. True, other 
influences have, as in all kindred enterprises, conspired in pro- 
ducing these results ; but they are as fairly attributable under 
God to the cause of peace as the spread of Christianity is to the 
missionary cause, or the triumphs of temperance to that cause. 
No enterprise, to our knowledge, has ever accomplished more, if 
as much, with so small an amount of means ; for all Christen- 
dom has thus far given it not more than $150,000, an average of 
only four or five thousand dollars a year." 

Though it is a sudden transition from the sphere of 
figures, somewhat into that of romance, we cannot refrain 
from presenting the idea, that a body of peacemakers from 
different countries, and especially from the two recently 
at war on this continent, might with some effect have 
stood in the breach, at the commencement of the war. 
At the peril of their lives, if necessary (though the adven- 
ture would probably not have involved great peiil) they 
might have shewn what it is to be soldiers of peace, 
whose business it is to die, if required as a testimony, 
equally as the soldiers of any other cause. Had this been 
fanaticism, then, for once, there had been good in fanati- 
cism. 

The enterprise of a world-police (so to speak) however 
few, armed with the olive-branch alone, to arrest the col- 
lision of two armies, or to perish between them, would 



54 The Means of Preventing War. 

never have been lost on mankind, particularly the nations 
through whose encounter they were rendered martyrs. 
Imagine these nations to behold a deputednumber of their 
own citizens and their foes united, prostrated by the dead- 
ly weapons they themselves had sent to that very field — 
slain while taking sweet counsel together, and "in their 
death not divided"* illustrating the unity that should have 
prevailed, at any sacrifice, between their respective na- 
tions! It would have been found that those who had thus 
fallen in the midst of the battle, were mighty beyond 
those who had carried arms thither. Their blood, like that 
of other martyrs, would have watered the seed sown by 
them. Their testimony would have been borne over the 
hills, and planted on the heights, more swiftly than the 
standards of the most rapid conqueror. The demands of 
the case, however, imply no such sacrifice. Their mission 
could scarcely be a failure, even if, like other sons of light, 
of not a more sublime distinction, 

"From each band with speed retired, 
Where erst was thicliest fight, the angelic throng, 
And left large field, unsafe within the wind 
Of such commotion. "t 

But hope as to the result of such an adventure is not 
circumscribed within this alternative. Why might not 
the parties succeed in preventing the fray, and yet live? 
It were no new thing for whole tribes to change their 
minds in a day. How speedy was the reception of Chris- 
tianity by some nations in Europe. Why then may 
there not be hope, that nations professing to be already 
christianized., should be converted rapidly from mutual 
slaughter! The day may yet arrive, when opposed armies 
may adopt a new method of "conquering a peace," and, 
rejecting the sword, be baptized into reconciliation at the 
waters of strife. Imagine how such an event would shed 
over the scene aseociations, transcending in romance and 
in gladness any that have immortalized the banks of the 
Rio Grande! 

But here is a scheme more accordant with the present 
spirit of the age: — We hear annually of world-conven- 
tions held with reference to objects to which their counsels 

* 2 Sam. i. 23. t Paradise Lost, B. vi. 



The Means of Preventing War. 55 

are little available, and in countries where there is not the 
greatest need of them. But a peace-conveniion for the 
benefit of this whole continent, appears to have been left 
for another age. Still less thought has there been of pitch- 
ing its tents at Corpus Christi, rendering that spot more 
than nominally an ark for the peace-bearing dove. While, 
for a considerable period, there has been an alienation of 
feeling betv\^een this country and Mexico, no efforts have 
been made for communication with society in Mexico on 
the subject of peace principles, though such might have 
been made with happy results. 

Societies of the nature we are considering ought not to 
lose sight of the evil o{ civil war, as one that claims their 
laborious attention. In their proper place in this treatise, 
sentiments shall be offered on the means by which it may, 
to a great extent, if not altogether, be avoided. At present 
we humbly suggest that a mode in which the advocates 
of peace may greatly promote the interests of the princi- 
ple, is, by the diffusion of such knowledge among the dis- 
pensers of civil government throughout the world, as will 
correct the views too common among ihem, as to the man- 
ner of preventing the outburst of popular passion. In this 
aspect of the duty alluded to, it renders indispensable an 
attenrion to the science of free goverijment. This circum- 
stance presents to collateral notice, the danger to which 
the interests of this cause will be liable, if its connection 
with the piusuitof that science be not perfectly detached 
from all other ends than the interests of this particular 
cause. If that independence be not carefully maintained, 
the advocacy of this cause will be liable to abuse, as a 
channel for instilling theories adverse to the systems of 
government prevailing in various countries. It is not to 
be expected that organizations committing such invasion, 
foreign to their object, would receive that confidence 
abroad which is essential to their usefulness. Policy is 
indeed far from reqnning in this connection reserve as to 
political predelictions ; nor could there be an observance 
of such reserve consistently with the prosecution of the 
objects in view. Such a policy would dissociate the know- 
ledge of good government from the sphere of usefulness, 
the importance of its connection with which is the point 
now maintained. The duty of the peace bearers with re- 



56 The Means of Preventmg War. 

ference to civil war is two-fold — on one hand to impress the 
popular mind with motives for abstaining from active resist- 
ance, to whatever degree right may be their's— on the other 
hand, to enlighten governments on the adaptation of consti- 
tutions, or of administration, to the character and wants of 
their respective people. Were the cause of peace as well 
supported as some others, the society for its promotion might 
have ambassadors resident or visitant in every metropolis 
throughout the world — selected too from the ablest public 
characters, with a provision adequate to the situation as- 
signed them, and to the influence sought. Although such 
arrangements, if made with reference to countries of which 
the governments have not had previous acquaintance with 
the movements of the society, would be very likely to ex- 
cite suspicion of untoward motives, this would not be the 
case, if, during the whole period antecedent to such ar- 
rangements, information of all the proceedings of the so- 
ciety are regularly forwarded to all accessible govern- 
ments, whether designated as civilized or as barbarian. 
There can be little doubt that the sound moral system 
maintained by such representatives (divested of all politi- 
cal intrigue, or expression of party-sympathy — which 
would be a disqualification from such office) their know- 
ledge of human nature in a state of political freedom or of 
narrow restraint, their philanthropy and feelings of univer- 
sal citizenship, would procure such a degree of confidence, 
as would invest them, to a very considerable extent, with 
(he attributes and privileges of universal councillors, upon 
national interests. It should be observed, that already 
some of the greatest politicians in the world are in the in- 
terest of the cause. 

II. By a Congress of nations, it has been often propos- 
ed to remove the assumed necessity for wars. Without a 
diffused inculcation of the principles of peace, there would 
be little seciuity for an obedience to the decrees of such a 
body; though unquestionably it would by itself diminish 
materially the motives and temptations to engage in war. 

The only council of nations now existing, that fulfils in 
any degree the objects of such a Congress as is contem- 
plated, consists of the Jive poicers ; and this has rather the 
functions of an oligarchy, created by a necessity that may 
have been real, or apparent, or assumed — constituted by 



The Means of Preventing War. 67 

self-election, excluding other nations from participation, 
while it exercises a degree of international jurisdiction 
over them. Nature and special providence have made 
this council— if It will but apprehend its proper destiny — 
a suitable nucleus tor the constitution of a Congress of 
nations, over an acquiescent area of jurisdiction. It is to 
be regretted that such an end was not sought anterior to 
the last French revolution. Had such a plan been enter- 
tained and carried into effect, there might have been now 
a restrictive rnoial force over the European nations, which, 
as times are, does not exist. It is not while a continent is 
shaken, and natii)ns in explosion, and the atmosphere 
war, or rumour of war, that a permanent association of the 
character we plead for can be formed. When the present 
convulsion has subsided, the favorable opportunity will 
be again presented. International legislation, based on 
the equality of nations, being once commenced, its uni- 
versal prevalence, with little exception, may be confident- 
ly hoped for. "If (says Kant,) we may indulge the 
anticipation, or even conception, of the established supre- 
macy of a universally recognized law, though its perfect 
realization be attainable otily by indefinite approximations, 
then the idea of perpetual peace, which shall supersede 
what have heretofore been called treaties of peace, but 
which are rather terminations of hostilities, is not chiriier- 
ical, but a prob.em of which time promises the solution, 
within a period to be lessened no doubt according to the 
progress of the human mind."* 

The subject of a Congres^s among the nations for the 
solution of their mutual difficulties has received consider- 
able attention from individuals; likewise the requisite 
mode of electing, organizing, and investing such a body. 
It is probable that little more can be added to the sugges- 
tions already published, until an experimental application 
of these has been undertaken. That alone can determine 
the character of the theories proposed. There is enough 
suggested, so far as the administration of justice to nations 
is in point ; and on other points, there is sufficient light 
for a beginning. How to enforce the decisions of such a 
Court — or rather how to discourage effectually a non-com- 

* Kant — On perpetual peace. 



58 The Means of Preventing War. 

pliance with them, is a department of the subject, which 
demands all the ability that can be brought to bear upon 
it; the successful exertion of which to a practical eiid, 
would most probably command all the recompense that is 
ever yielded to moral or political discoveries. On the 
supposition, for example, that (he discontinuatice of com- 
merce with a refractory power, were a measure proposed 
to the other powers in the Congress, it were well that 
there should be antecedent estimates of the distresses to 
which individuals, or companies, or classes, would be lia- 
ble in consequence of such a resolution, and the mode in 
which compensative channels may be opened to their en- 
terprise, permanently or temporarily. Nor should there be 
an oversight of the question as to the virtual incentives to 
hostility obtaining through such discontinuance of com- 
mercial relations; though there would be some security 
against that evil, besides a hope for reclaiming the disaffect- 
ed power, in the continued recognition of its privilege of re- 
presentation in the Congress. These points are named as 
of that kind which should especially occupy those who 
are qualified for the investigation. 

111. Unfettered commerce is among the most important 
of the peace-bearing schemes ever devised. That exten- 
sive commercial intercourse anjong nations is favorable 
to the maintenance of pacific relations, is but a truism. 
But that the less restricted is such iiitercourse, the more 
cemented and the less liable to violation are those rela- 
tions, although it is not more questionable, yet the princi- 
ple has been hardly yet (practically) invested with the re- 
cognized character of a inaxim. 

Sundry questions aie now before the world occupying 
the attention of statesmen ; to whom belongs the exposi- 
tion of them to the popular tribunal. And on the deter- 
mination of them depend, not indeed the destinies of the 
world, but the acceleration of such as are becoming more 
and more manifest. One is whether the nations ought 
not to be mutually dependant, rather than seek to be in- 
pendent of each other. Another is whether, supposing 
there be sacrifices incurred by a nation, not rninous toils 
essential interests, in unrestricted or but lightly burdened 
commerce, it is or is not preferable to incur them, with a 
view, partly to the gieater insurance of amicable relations 



The Means of PreventiJig War. 69 

with other countries, by strengthening that bond which 
is called interest — and partly to the impulse which such 
example communicates to other parts of the world, which 
are in greater need of such relations for 'heir advance- 
ment in humanity. Anntlier question is whether, gener- 
ally speaking, a nation does really incur internal sacrifi- 
ces, in the long run, by the removal of restrictions to com- 
merce, even if its liherality be not reciprocated. It is not 
within our province or ability to expound these most im- 
portant questions, although not without a creed respecting 
them, anl a deep inteiest in them. Besides, remarks on 
the present topic, can, with propriety, be little other than 
general on the present occasion.* 

With reference to commercial relations generally, and 
to the analogous departments of activity, to which confi- 
dence and credit are as life-olood, it might seem superflu- 
ous to enunciate the self-evident principle, that credit 
should be sustained as unimpaired as unavoidable misfor- 
tune will permit. But the motive for its repetition, at 
present, is rather to impress upon those who maintain in 
theory the most liberal views of international relation the 
high place it ought to have in their reflections, and among 
the objects of their intent self-application. The scrupulous 
maintenance of national credit abroad, in every depart- 
ment of business, does not admit of being passed by, 
when the ethical aspect of free commerce is before the 

• Bastial's work, on Protective Policy, translated by Mrs M'Cord, with 
an introduction by Professor Lieber, should be read by every one. The 
following remarks of Lord Palmerston are very forcible : — '' Why is the 
earth, on which we live, divided into zones and climates 1 Why, I ask, do 
different countries yield different pi eductions, to people experiencing similar 
wants'? W hy are they intersected with mighty rivers, the natural high- 
ways of nations'? Why are lands, the most distant from each other, 
brought almost into contact by the very ocean which seems to divide them'? 
Why, sir, it is that man maybe dependent upon man. It is that the ex- 
change of commodities may be accompanied by the extension and diffusion 
of knowledge — by the interchange of mutual benefits, engendering mutual 
kind feelings — multiplying and confirming friendly relations It is that 
commerce may freely go forth, leading civilization with one hand, and peace 
with the other, to render mankind happier, wiser, better. Fir, this is the dis- 
pensation of providence — this is the decree of that power which created and 
disposes the universe ; but, in the face of it, with arrogant, presumptuous 
folly, the dealers in restrictive duties, fly — fettering the inborn energies of 
man, and setting up their miserable legislation instead of the great standing 
laws of nature." (Speech in the British House of Commons, on the Corn 
Laws, Feb. I6th, 1842.) 



60 The Means of Preventing War. 

attention. And it is important that that aspect be kept 
before the pubHc mind universally ; inasmuch as every 
man, though not engaged in commerce as an avocation, 
or in agencies having affinity with it, may bear more or 
less, by his intersecting influences, on national or local 
character, with reference to those very particulars. In the 
transactions between governments and private persons, 
the principle of repudiation has found place, analagous- 
ly as in those between individuals. And there can be no 
doubt that the peace of nations is, at all times, endanger- 
ed, nor always in an indirect manner, by national or 
(what is not badly termed) sectional violation of faith ; 
besides the indirect manner in which its stabiHty must be 
affected by the diminished negotiations and interests that 
have previously insured it. 

To the greatest facilities of commercial intercourse, 
should be added international encouragements to a social 
mingling of the people of different nations ; also, corpo- 
rate intercourse between particular classes in one coun- 
try, and the coriesponding classes in other coimtries. — 
Among the advantages accruing from such an approxi- 
mation of nations, is the knowledge they thus acquire of 
one another's civilization, and of its rationale. This is 
very etfectual towards the expulsion of national prejudice. 
He is but a child who passes judgment on nations, with- 
out an apprehension of characteristics as otherwise modi- 
fied than in his own country; and these are ill discrimi- 
nated, without a capacity for referiing them to other 
standards than his native one, supposing him to have 
grasped any other. It is not an unfrequent speculation, 
that increased intercourse between countries tends to les- 
sen prejudice, either by making apparent a less diflerence 
in their habits, and in the mould of their sentiments, than 
as previously believed, or by assimilating them in a great- 
er or less degree. The diminution of prejudice is a natu- 
ral, perhaps usual effect, but not tlirou.!h an altered im- 
pression, which is presumed with as little reason to be a 
general consequence of the intercourse, as to be a means 
o^ producing the favorable result.* Whether the differ- 

♦ Nothing can be more certain, than that the circumstance of the English 
language being common to Great Britain and to this country, is a cause of 
ill impression, in common, to people in both countries, particularly the for- 



The Means of Preventing' War. 61 

ences of the nature in question, be proved by the inter- 
course, to be more or less agreeable with prepossession, 
is not so much to the point, as an intelligence with regard 
to the principle of" diti'ereiice, or the circumstances on 
which the dilFerence is based, and the elementary influ- 
ences, (so far as they are not immoral,) out of which a 
spirit of society, other than we are accustomed to, has 
been formed. When read by these lights, many circum- 
stances, inapposite to uninformed prejudice, obtain license 
in the court of reason, if not in that of taste. The qual- 
ity of an elementary law, or organic influence, in the so- 
ciety of a particular region, is of course disputable. But 
only in relation to such laws or influences, can that so- 
ciety be properly estimated, or even understood. 

The drift of the foregoing observations must be obvi- 
ous : and it is hoped that, in their suggestive character, 
they are not inapplicable to use, for the promotion of 
good will amongst mankind. 

IV. Civil War has been alluded to in a former part of 
this treatise, as creating a separate department of duty, 
the qualifications for which were suggested as worthy of 
special consideration. We propose to renew allusion to 
it, with a view to a presentment of certain radical causes 
ot civil war. 

Whatever be the form of government and society, sup- 
posing it to be once adapted to the happiness of a people, 
it is the duty of those who form the privileged orders, (if 
there be any such.) to regaid their position as being not 
so much a privilege, as a vocation for certain ends. — 
When, therefore, with the progress of time, the popular 
intelligence has advanced, and the spirit of the age cor- 
respondingly altered, it becomes those whose position or 
vocation has been defined by a different state of things, 

mer. For where a person finds his own language spoken, he is disappoint- 
ed at the absence of uniformity, in all other respects, with his own native 
habits and customs. Had these two countries a different vernacular, then 
greater differences than there are would be looked for. Further, it is both an 
advantage and a disadvantage to the English language, that its spirit is in- 
tolerant of variation from a prevailing mode of speaking it. The advan- 
tage is, its greater tendency to universally in a single dialect. The disad- 
vantage consists in a narrowness of sentiment, occasioned by it, which does 
injustice to hterary or conversational merit, when featured with variation 
produced by foreign birth or remote scenes. 



62 The Means of Preventing War. 

not to be loth to yield that pre-eminence, to the extent 
which accords with the pubhc spirit. It commonly hap- 
pens that, when measures of reform are proposed, with a 
view to effect a wider distribtition of privileges, or to 
graduate them more liberally, or to render less unequal 
the enjoyment of natural rights, by removing or dimin- 
ishing the causes of excess in the inequality, the privi- 
leged orders immediately raise the cry of interference 
with hereditary rights. Yet these rights were not de- 
signed by Supreme Providence for their enjoyment in 
any other sense than every one who fulfils his duty in 
his proper place, can likewise realize. In what other 
legimate mode can they enjoy their position ? Is it in the 
augmented means of self-indulgence ? Powers beyond 
those possessed by ordinary mortals, were not originally, 
and never legitimately — that is, consistently with natural 
right and moral propriety, conceded for any such piupose. 
It is simply for a useful end that any peculiar political 
order is created by society; and it is consequently revo- 
cable by society, whether on a conviction that it has an- 
swered its end, or that it has failed to do so. It is too 
conmionly argued that historical proof of advantage from 
a certain tbrm of constitution, or from sundry circumstan 
tiais, is reason for their perpetual continuance. As well 
might it be argued, that the best school for the young is 
still the most appropriate when maturity has been attain- 
ed, as that a people should not have a free constitution 
when qiici lifted for the enjoyment of one. The ideal slate 
of humanity, which will never be quite attained in the pre- 
sent dispensation of things, is one in which the most perfect 
self-government alone prevails ; though this can never dis- 
pense with the need of delegated powers, to concentrate the 
popular voice, in that form which is called " government." 
And this requires more or less force, according as the mas- 
ses are lessor more capable of taking care of themselves. In 
a country far advanced in civilization, there is little fear of 
the masses erring much in their estimate of good govern- 
ment, if their views are tiuly represented. Look at 
Prance — what is the state of public spirit throughout that 
country, notwithstanding the extent of insuboidination ? 
It has had a most marked expression in favor of law and 
order. Too many among us do the French people an in- 



The Means of Preventing War. 63 

justice, by overlooking how sorely tried their energies 
have been, in resisting the tempestuous element that has 
threatened to submerge all the interests of man in acorn 
mon burial. These severe trials, the lot of that people in 
the first stages of their experiment in self-government, 
should enlist the sympathies of mankind in a greater de- 
gree, than if there had been no volcanic elements in their 
political sphere, boiling evermore in an impenetrable deep. 
The conduct of the French nation is entitled to no small 
praise. The cncumstance that so small a portion of so- 
ciety has produced so much turmoil, with comparative 
impunity, has grown out of the moderation and unaveng- 
ing spirit of the people at large. Had such occurrences 
taken place in the United States, it is more than prohable 
that the people would, in a mass, have risen against the 
insurgent community, and, as the condition of their de- 
liverance from molestation, would have required their de- 
parture, within a given time, to some disttint corner of the 
land, where they might have governed themselves in any- 
way they pleased — as Mormons or as Communists — so 
long as they ceased to disturb the peace of the nation. — 
It was indeed intimated, in some of the foregoing expres- 
sions, that the depth of the disorder, in Fiench society, is 
not to be probed. This unhappy circumstance renders 
the condition of that people, striving with a mighty elfort, 
to fulfil their duty in the scale of nations — one that ought 
to be peculiarly interesting to the philanthropist, or even 
to those censors of mankind, whose impatience is not en- 
tirely devoid of forbcarnce. The state of France, at 
this period, is of the most vital importance, in the eyes of 
all who are concerned for the peace of mankind. Her 
internal condition requires all the attention which the 
statesmen and philanthropists of the world can devote to 
it.* It would be well if a Legislature, which volunteers 

* " The Federalist," a collection of the ablest political papers ever written, 
should, at this time, be recommended to the study of incipient republicans. 
Lamartine has misapprehended the design of the Senate, in the constitution 
of the United States. In a recent speech, on the question of a second 
branch of the Legislature for France, he has referred to the mode of consti- 
tuting our Senate, as if this were indicative of a solitary and exclusive idea 
in its original institution, namely: the representation of the federal relation. 
But the fact that every separate State, in the Union, has taken the precau- 
tion to divide its Legislature into two branches, of which the Senate is elec- 



64 The Mea?is of Prevefitifig War. 

so much aid to the christian reHgion, as does that of 
France, would cease to exclude, as it does, consistent 
christians from its own body, by requiring attendance on 
the Sabbath, which appears to be their great day for pub- 
He business, when the times are un propitious to a devo- 
tion of it to pleasure. " The Sabbath is the sheet-anchor 
of religion and good morals. All experience proves it so ; 
for France tried to do without it, and plunged at once into 
atheism, anarchy, and a sea of vices and crimes. It is 
the nurse and guardian of intelligence, and piety, and 
virtue, and good order, and general prosperity. It is the 
hinge of God's moral government over our world, and the 
main-spring or pivot of all the instrumentalities employed 
or appointed for the salvation of mankind." A nation 
that can dispense with the christian Sabbath, may be pre- 
sumed to have made up its mind that God's moral gov- 
ernment of the world, including of course the blessing of 
peace, both domestic and international, can be likewise 
dispensed with.t 

ted for a much longer period than the Assembly, is no slight exposition of 
the primary intention oftlie naliunoL Senate. The adoption of tliis element 
in the constitutions of theseparte States, and in their federal constitution, ap- 
pears to have been founded on a conviction that the history of popular 
views, for a space varying from one to three or four years, is often a very 
different thing from a histoiy of such views, in the same region, for six or 
eight years. The mode of election for the national Senate, so as to render 
it federal in its representation, was a grand conception. But that such was 
not the germ of the institution, will further appear from the following extract 
from the Federalist, No. 62, by Mr. Madison : — " Among the various modes 
which mignt have been devised for constituting this branch of the govern- 
ment, that which has been proposed by the convention, is probably the 
most congenial with the public opinion. It is recommended, by the double 
advantage, of favoring a select appointment, and of giving to the State gov- 
ernments such an agency in die formation of the federal government, as must 
sec, ire the authority of the former, and may form a convenient link between 
the two systems." Had the adopted mode of constituting this branch, 
been otherwise than " congenial with the public opinion," undoubtedly 
some other of " the various modes which might have been devised," would 
have been adopted. So that the institution of the Senate was not for a fed- 
eral end, dhliough its a»»w<iYw<j'oft is made to answer that end. Moreover, 
the President of the Senate represents no particular State, being appointea 
by the people. 

t Prizes have been awarded, in England, to Essays on the Sabbath, by 
working men. Why do not the religious societies, in France, make a sim- 
ilar call in a land where it is so much needed 1 As, however, statistical 
knowledge, on the subject, is probably small there, it might be expedient to 
circulate first translations of the English Essays, to familiarize some of the 
corresponding classes, in France, with the bearings of the subject. 



The Means of Preventing War. 65 

Let us now turn towards England. The English are 
a people qualifi d for self-governiiieni, which, to a great 
extent, they already enjoy. 'I'hey have always had a 
greater participation than other nionarchists in impelling 
the wheels of government. 'I'his, of late years, thoy 
have done much more than ever. It has been the wise 
policy of the government, notwiihstandnig resistance from 
a portion of the privileged orders, to do comparative jus- 
tice to the increasing claims of the people, as regards the 
extension of constitutional privilege, and a more compre- 
hensive admission to the suffrage. It is in this manner 
that the order of things is preserved ; the only occurring 
changes being such as harmony requires, though not lo 
the extent required. Concessions have not usiially been 
made when first needed, nor until they have become ab- 
solutely indispensable. But the statesmen of England 
have learnt to apprehend the period when such is the 
case. Consequently, were England to be threatened with 
such storms as those to which Prance is subject, the civ- 
ilized world may exult in a belief that they would be 
weathered — and in a way which, to republicans in this 
country, would not appear marvellous. If the popular 
form of govermnent were ever to become general, its es- 
tablishment in England would be, probably, without the 
least bloodshed, when the hour for it might arrive. When 
self government is the tendency of a people, a prematuri- 
ty, in its arrival, is occasioned only by neglect to pre- 
pare them for it. The change from a nmnaicliy to a re- 
public, is more simple than is made to appear through 
the war notes that have so often ushered the transition. 
One definition of the change may be this — that the exec- 
utive ceases to be the head of an aristocracy, and becomes 
the head of the people. Nor is it so much a change, in 
the form of government, as in the distribution of the pri- 
vilege and responsibility of government. So that a gov- 
ernment, of which the fortu is monarchical, may be, 
essentially, more republican than one of republican name. 

We have intimated how unusual it has been for privi- 
leged orders to make concessions to the people, till com- 
pulsory necessity interposes. But is it right to wait for 
such a crisis? It is the duty of monarchs and aristocrats 
to " stand upon their watch, and set them upon the tow- 
10 



66 The Means of Preventing War. 

er, and watch to see" — not -what is for their iwdividiial or 
corporate interest, (so regarded,) as being conservative of 
their monopolized privilege ; but the improvement of the 
people, which it is their mission to further, and that^ With a 
view to the fitness of the latter for tlie revocation to the 
general mass of that which they themselves are holding 
in trust for that mass. The more absokite the discretion 
they consider themselves to be armed with, the greater 
their political and moral obligation to think as for the 
people, and not as for themselves and their order. If they 
continue blind to the truth that privilege is a commis- 
sion, they will find themselves, sooner or later, behind 
their age, and be no longer able to lead it. Were it mat- 
ter of experience, that the orders of men in question, 
evinced a consciousness that such is their mission and 
vocation, there would be unfailing general confidence in 
them ; and if impatience were manifested, it would be of 
a different kind from that by which society is alarmed. — 
It would be the popular aspiration of self-adaptation for 
the enjoyment of the privileges and the exercise of the 
responsibilities that await them. If there be a distrust of 
the popular tendency, there may be a no less counter-dis- 
trust of the professions of the privileged orders, to be 

engaged in seeking the national welfare in their own 

They must not, like the Jewish Priesthood, consider their 
rights invaded, because the continuance of their office, 
which was for the nurture of a nation, until its mind has 
attained a certain growth, is made a question of. Did 
they act on correct views of their destiny, the people 
would rarely fail "to esteem them very highly in love for 
their works sake, and to be at peace among themselvesP* 
It would be injustice to the aristocracy of Great Britain 
(we exclude that of Ireland from this remark,) to deny 
their fulfilment, to a grand extent, of the ends for which 
they have been instituted. After their resignation, in due 
time, [if such is the appointment by providence,) of the 
arena which they have historically ennobled, there will 
be, probably, no cZassof men to whose career history will 
pay a more grateful tribute. They do not yet, indeed, 
appear to be impressed with the conditions and limits of 

t I ThesB. V, 13. 



The Means of Preventing War. ^7 

their destiri}'-. But the theory of their appointed end, 
which we have ventured to propound, is an ideal of duty, 
which it must be admitted that human contemplation or- 
dinarily refuses to embrace, and the consequence to priv- 
ileged orders, by the laws both of nature and of special 
providence, is repeated alarm from the suppressed, but 
threatening spirit of mankind, until the final issue, which 
is thus rendered too commonly an explosion. And yet 
the popular spirit, now become the world-tendency, only 
requires, in practice, the substance of the above maxims 
as its counterpart, in countries where inequality of politi- 
cal privilege obtains. On the confluence or opposition of 
these impulses, it must depend whether the discontinu- 
ance of privileged orders will be an acquiescent absorp- 
tion of (hem into that body of mankind, which they have 
contributed to prepare for these solutions of natural and 
providential dispensation — or whether it shall be the re- 
sult only of national convulsions ; their failure to antici- 
pate which indicates either the immaturity or dotage of 
their institution. The fulfilment, by any order of men, 
in times past, of a purpose gradually expiiing, is no ar- 
gument for its perpetuation. To maintain that whatever 
is venerable with the hoar of centuries, ought never to be 
brought to a close in the world, is equivalent to denying 
the decree of cessation, or of change in the form of exis- 
tence, to all organizations, even to contending against the 
dispensation of "a new heaven, and a new earth." 

Among the points comprehended in the general ques- 
tion of internal national peace, is an exaggerated inequal- 
ity in the distribution of land m some countries. Imagine 
but two families in a region, typical of the two great 
divisions of rich and poor, and that which has first occu- 
pied claiming the whole, assigning to the other a cave or 
a cellar, to the limits of which it dutifully submits. Can 
the increase of this family be bounded by such an allot- 
ment ? How is it then with what is called an over-popu- 
lated country, but which only means that there is a part 
of the population confined to a spot which can scarcely 
contain it? Does not the nature of things require that the 
existing principles of allotment shall sooner or later un- 
dergo a change? "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness 
thereof." If the original man was to "multiply, and ro« 



68 The Means of Preventing War. 

plenish" it, his progeny was, like himself, to have it for a 
residence, and each individual to have a share in its do- 
minion, though " in the sweat of his face he should eat 
bread." If there be a portion of mankind for whom there 
is not space sufficient to enable them by the sweat of 
their face to eat bread, in their own land, legislation is de- 
manded ; not indeed for the spoliation of any party, but 
either to withdraw the obnoxious legalized principle of 
agricultural distribution, or, if it be prevalent without legis- 
lative enforcement, to provide against its continuance ; un- 
less the govennneni can immediately convey the destitute 
to another soil where the sources of comfort and happi- 
ness are open to honest industry; that is, supposing it 
justifiable to present that alternative, if a remedy to the 
domestic evil is otherwise impracticable. No social evil is 
more liable than this to ultimate retribution, though in a 
longer nm than in the case of others. And it is certain 
that, but for the ill provision of a vast portion of the hu- 
man race, wars, both foreign and civil, and rumours of 
their approach, would find less encouragement on the earth 
— owing to a dimiiiuiion of the suggested expediency for 
them, and of provocation or other incentive to them — owing 
also to theenhancement of every impulse to their avoidance, 
as contained in the homestead and its associations, in an 
increased estimate of life, time, property, and every appen- 
dage to which the idea of sacrifice can be attached. 

Some notice should be taken of the form which, in con- 
federated republics such as the United States, provocation 
to civil war would be most likely to assume. These States 
maintaining, as to their internal economy, a perfect inde- 
pendence of each other, it is essential to general security 
that no intrusion be menaced on the prerogative of any. 
A truism as this is abstractedly, it is nevertheless one of 
those political rudiments that we do well to put one ano- 
ther in mind of. The observance or otherwise of this con- 
stitutional tie — and the more independent mternally we 
regard each other, the closer the bond — will be of incalcu- 
lable effect on the repute of our federal system through- 
out the world, inasmuch as there is an exhibition hereby 
of the unlimited extent to which nations may be united 
by such a tie. without endangering the security of their 
iuteinal institutions, through thatdiflerence in their modes 



The Means of Preventing War. 69 

of thought, which is created by variety in climate, and 
hisioricul or other associations. '^I'heir reciprocal inde- 
pendence should be such as to prevent all liability to col- 
lision, respecting local institutions and locally affected in- 
terests. They should be, in this respect, as a cluster of 
trees, which, though combining to produce a shade, do 
nevertheless, "shun each othei's shade,"* when agitated, 
and thus avoid that entanglement and confusion which 
might result in disaster to them all. It is only thus 
that they can grow together, enjoy the same sunshine, and 
resist the same storms.t If a comprehensive nipublic, 
constituted on such a basis, and governed consistently 
with it, should not endure for ages, it would be because it 
is too good a system to last long, in a world which has 
evinced so much predilection for discord and usurpation — 
too great a blessing for man's perversity to allow it a long 
residence on the earth. 

As to cases of oppression, in which the parties govern- 
ed feel it a duty to make resistance, the views of an ano- 
nyn)ous female writer are very appropriate and forcible : — 
"The event of a battle is always doubtful; but the oppo- 
sition of steady persevering non-compliance, no victory 
can subdue. No man can be literally compelled to obey 
the commands of another. Would any ruler attempt to 
invade the liberties of a nation, when he was perfectly 
assured that all his efforts would be unavailing in produc- 
ing obedience to his decree, and that, after baffling the 
last resources of tyraimy, resolution would remain as im- 
moveable as at the beginning of the contest? It would be 
like attempting with a knife to cut against the solid rock. 
Physical resistance is the clash of opposing lances in the 
tilt yard, where it is an even chance which shall first shi- 
ver the other to pieces. Hampden did more for the liber- 
ties of his country, when he stedfastly refused to submit 
to the illegal imposition of twenty shillings, than when he 
took up arms in defence of those liberties. And if all En- 

♦ Pope, 
t This illustration may be profitably amplified. Corruption in a limb of 
the constitution of one, must be left by the others to be cast off by its own 
internally prevailing life. The others are not likely to better it by an entan- 
gling interference to wrench off the morbid appendage or objectionable fea- 
ture ; in doing which, they may destroy their neighbor and mar themselves. 



70 The Means of Preventing War. 

glishmen had been like Hampden, there would have been 
no Charles to tyrannize, no Cromwell to usurp,"* 

The observations submitted as above, on some of the 
means by which civil wars may be prevented, will render 
more apparent to the friends of peace, the importance of 
attention to the modes in which liberal principles of go- 
vernment may be recommended with effect, in cases where 
public security is involved in such questions. 

The remainder of this Essay will consist of 

AN APPEAL TO THE NATIONS. 

Assuming that the prevailing sentiment of a nation is 
opposed to war, unless there be a necessity for engaging 
in it^which is the ground professed to be taken by all the 
civilized world — is it not clear that the compulsion of 
honour is neutralized by resigning the protection of that 
honour to a court of nations '?t Is not even a prejudicial 
arbitration moie than compensated by the avoidance of 
those manifold evils, for which the strongest sense of right 
in a dispute cannot atone to a correct moral sentiment, or 
to those whose lives or comfort for life, or whose interests 
and feelings are sacrificed. If these points be conceded, 
how can any nation hesitate to aim its mightiest moral 
efforts at procuring the concurrence of other nations, in a 
scheme by which national complaints may be rediessed, 
and the motives for war superseded, if not extinguished? 
Independently of the result of such efforts, should a nation 
fail of success in her appeal to others, would that be a 
reasonable ground of discouragement from the pursuit of 
the same end by a solitary renunciation of war? What a 
glorious example would be the public renunciation of the 
principle and practice of war, by any nation of character! 
Who could impugn her honour, in the spirit of the present 
age, when only an example is required — one, involving 
not so much forbearance, as moral courage ? There is no 
slight analogy between the hesitation of a nation to risk 
its repute for warlike courage, and that/orwer/y of an in- 

* From a Peace tract. 
t Even the private duellist does not consider his honour to be quite safe in 
his own hands. He commits it to another party, in plenary confidence. 
Nor is the position of this party so analagous to that of an advocate, as tQ 
that of an arbitrator. 



The Means of Preventing War. 71 

dividual to face the frown of a society in which the prin- 
ciples of false honour prevailed. Of the latter kind every 
instance of moral triumph, publicly exhibited, has aided 
in laising a battlement for the protection of public virtue. 
And why may not the example of a nation, particularly 
one that can shew her scars, be of like moral effect in the 
community of nations? What nation of any character 
would assail her? It might be doubted if a nation of no 
character would do so, inasmuch as all value a repute for 
morality when it has the name oi chivalry — to which re- 
pute such a movement would be fatal, as in a case of ag- 
gression on an individual the reverse of combative. Fur-- 
ther, as the prevalent idea of the expediency of increasing 
territorial possessions and other sources of power, would 
have less scope for its entertainment, if war were renounc- 
ed, so every nation would be more content with its pos- 
sessions. Nor would the ebullitions of jealousy be so much 
intruded, when one State becomes annexed to another 
for participation in the advantages of a better government 
afforded by the latter : the motives for confederation would 
incur less suspicion ; federal relations would be establish- 
ed with less hesitation at home and objection abroad, 
when mutually beneficial : and there would be less ob- 
struction to the formation of separate States out of large 
territories, where the inhabitants prefer being independent 
of the government to which they have been subject. If 
such prospects be Utopian, it can only be so incase man- 
kind at large are incapable of any considerable moral ele- 
vation. 

In as far as special appeal is invited by the occasion, 
we have more to say of course to our own United States. 
The idea of " manifest destiny," which many as seriously 
check as others encourage, we adopt with as much enthu- 
siasm as any^— actively as to our national duty to advance 
the good of mankind at large — passively as to our acqui- 
sitions, which depend honorably as much on the will of 
others, independent of us, as on our own. This nation 
has but to let events take their course; and if she fulfils 
the claims of universal humanity upon her, without im- 
posing self-aggrandizing movements on herself, her sha- 
dow will be sought after. If she predicts the destiny of 
other lands to be her possession, why precipitate the 



72 The Means of Preventing War. 

event? " He that believeth shall not make haste."* i\gain, 
whatever nations we anticipate as Mir own, thf more we 
do for their advancement, the mare piasiic to our infln- 
ence are they rendered. And it might well operate as a 
motive to national effort for the universal henefaciion of 
the human race, that we know not how much of it is one 
day to be our's ; for it is important to our interest, that 
such accessions should be in the most improved condition 
that can be attained by them in the interval. 

Let our policy be that of accomplishing our mission in 
the cause of human melioration ; and if, after proof of 
this, new States are given to us, they are our reward. 
But we prejudice results by antici[)atiiig the piovidonce 
that would have invested them with a voluntary charac- 
ter. Whatever ambition may be able to effect nt of due 
course, it will hasten no acquisition that is to be real and 
permanent enjoyment. The supposition of it is at all 
events unhistorical. In all our acquisitions, the character 
of the circumstances through which they have come into 
our possession should be heedfully scrutinized. If it be 
matter of necessity that they shall fall to us, as it were in 
spile of ourselves, we cannot do better than insist, so far 
as we can, on the mould wh ch the circumstances of our 
possession shall exhibit — th ^ir moral characteristics at 
least, over which we have some control. No disadvantages 
need then be apprehended from the enlaigement of domi- 
nion. There will be little danger of unwieldiness, when 
the appendages are acquiescent, like naturally developed 
members, and not like fragments pieced on with a cement 
of gore, ever subject to the necessity of renewal. 

In awaiting with dignified patience the developement 
of the grand destinies that seem to await our nation, if 
not prematurely interferred with, it is incumbent on the 
people, and not less essential to their happiness, to be 
guarded against the temptations held out to the inferior 
side of their national character, which, in every nation, is 
with difficulty counterbalanced by the better side of it — 

* Is. xxviii, 16. — There is a reported expression of Rothschild, when asked 
why a portion of tlie weaUh of his tribe was not appropriated to the pur- 
chase of Palestine. " Why purchase, (said lie) that which is given to us 
to possess in due time V 



The Means of Preventing War. 73 

lest il be drawn out to the fulfilment of much more than 
they would wish to see on historical record. To wound 
one neighbour, and to mmister balm to another, to bless 
one and hurt another — whether in public or in private life, 
in national or individual conduct — spoils the good, and 
atones not for the evil. Even the nation that does the 
most for civilization, should look to it, lest she be found to 
have the most blood guiltiness in her trail. 

The matter of the foregoing observations, though ad- 
dressed especially to the United States, would be, it is 
trusted, not an unsuitable offering to the peo[)le of every 
nation under heaven, to whom it were more acct'ptably 
presented. Our desires should be far fiom circumscribed 
to the glories of the career of our own country. We 
should desire to see all nations in the enjoyment of the 
same triumphs, by enlisting in the same cause, which is 
indeed their calling — thepacijic melioration of mankind, 
at whatever cost. 

Some of the principles here maintained, shall be biiefly 
applied ui a single, and we know not how remote, refer- 
ence. " England is expected in the Kast."* Let her go, 
wherever invited. Or, if determined to go at all events, 
let her leave sword and spear,t taking with her the plough- 
share and the pruning hook, in which she excels even 
more than in the other weapons. And if that will not 
secure at least an equal welcome from the natives, it will 
be evidence sufficient, that she has misapprehended either 
the field of her mission, or the period for its undertaking. 
Where it is written — "There go the ships," (fee, it is ad- 
ded "These wait all upon thee." And one might as 
reasonably burden the sacred song with the contempla- 
tion of fetters for a slave coast.t as with that of weapons 

♦ Warburton — The Crescent and the Cross. See also, in Coleridge's Friend, 
a letter from an American officer. 

t We were not a little surprised and disappointed, that Mr. Tupper, in 
his proposed national anthem for Liberia, should have used such expres- 
sions as, 

" Come with the tn.impet, the sword and the spear, 
" For love of liberty brought us here." 

t The correspondence of Mr. Wise, the American Minister at Rio, with 
the British government, concerns every Englishman and American ; as it 
exposes the extent to which American vessels, with British cargoes, are 
sent on expeditions to barter for slaves. 
11 



74 The Means of Preventing War. 

for destruction. On England's next rolurn, in triumph, 
from the scenes alkided to, it is devoutly to be wished, 
that none of her spoils would bear, as formerly, the in- 
scription — " Captured by the British army in Egypt."* 

In connection with this reference, it might be inquired 
of France, whether her prospects of being made at home 
in the East, have been advanced by the nature of the arms 
she sent across the Mediterranean— co/jce<ii7i^ the pro- 
priety of the mission, and the appropriate period for the 
enterprise. Has she not raised a barrier of steel to her 
own progress? Does any one doubt that William Penn 
would have made his way thither, in less time and with 
less sacrifice, than it will cost her, should the least suc- 
cess attend her ? 

To return to this country — the associations with its 
apparent destiny — possessed as it is by a branch of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, are such as to render important an 
allusion to circumstances that might threaten its progress 
with a drag. Notwithstanding the vast accessions to its 

* This is all the history that is appended to that celebrated antique, the 
Rosetta Stone, in the British museum. From the circumstance that the 
presents tlere deposited, are commonly acknowledged, one might, in the 
absence of better information, suppose that this had not been presented, as 
it was by the Turish government, but had been, without scruple, taken from 
the land of an ally, after being captured from the foe of the latter. It is 
mentioned, however, in Bonomi and Arnudell's Gal. Antiq. Brit. Mus. 
that "by the fortune of war, and the presenialion of the '1 urks (it) came 
into the possesion of the British government." Also, Long(Egyp. Antiq.) 
refers the British claim to Article 16 of the Convention of Alexandria. — 
The extent to which morale is here involved, is simply this — that the mili- 
tary aspect of the transaction, is considered as solely entitled to considera- 
tion, to the exclusion of the legitimate mode in which the tre; sure was ac- 
quired, and the courtesy of the former proprietors • as if this was mere form, 
and as if, in the vi ct armis, all was contained that could be presumed to in- 
terest the reader. Previously to the information imparted by the above 
named authors, the satisfaction of the present writer, as to the unexcep- 
tionable character of the circumstances of possession in question, could 
only consist of an infcrejice from the scrupulous deportment of the British 
government, with reference to points of this kind, of which the investiga- 
tion by the committee on the Elgin Marbles, is a strong proof. The circum- 
stance which is the subject of this note, though a small matter in itself, is 
in keeping with that disposition in the English, often noticed by foreign- 
ers, as striking at first sight, and in little congruity with their great pre-em- 
inence in the arts of peace — to give the greatest prominence to naval and 
military distinction, as proved by the comparatively fewer memorials "erec- 
ted at the public expense" to those who have advanced their countiy in other 
departments. 



The Means of Preventmg War. 75 

population from other countries, the Anglo-Saxon is far 
more than the merely prevailing element amoijg those of 
which the nation is composed ; for it assimilates and na- 
tionalizes the others. Considering the high calling of the 
race, the admixture of others with it, to the present ex- 
tent, on this continent, is not utilikc an election of them 
by providential favor to engraftment with it. An abuse 
of this privilege is occasionally threatened by portions of 
the grafted population having designs extraneous to the 
country and its interests, and at variance with its histori- 
cal spirit. If it be not in the power of the lest to deter 
them from intervention with the political difficulties in 
their native land, which they are presumed by their pre- 
sent citizenship to have resigned a personal connection 
with, it is at all events not the interest, any more than it 
is consistent with the political and moral principles of the 
rest, to be drawn in any degree into a compromise of 
their national stand-point and their whole foreign policy, 
for the gratification of that party. This allusion is obvi- 
ously to the efforts occasionally made for interesting the 
people of this country in the affairs of Ireland, to a far 
greater degree than they were ever invited to interest 
themselves in those of France. Yet the French element, 
in our population, is unquestionably moie involved in our 
commercial and other international ties. It is, perhaps, 
the less participation of the Irish class in those interests, 
that renders their proceedings thus independent of the 
consideration of them. It is natural for a man to sympa- 
thize with his native land, particularly if he is well ac- 
quainted with the history of its trials.* But it is no 
indication of his regard for the land he has adopted, if 

* Aside from the merits of the controversy, between Ireland and England, 
the great difference in temperament between the people of the two nations — 
exceeding as it does even the difference that might have been looked for had 
they been distant in geographical latitude — would sufRcienily account for 
the incessant broils tliey have, while subject to the same legislation ; even 
as individuals that vary greatly in tJiat respect, rarely compreliend each 
other's impulses, or do one another justice, and cannot be reconciled to the 
same social restrictions. The establishment of their separate sovereignty, 
but in federal union, is all that can keep them in domestic peace. Thus re- 
lated, it would matter little how their modes of thought differed, so long as 
they would let one another alone. Such an order of things does not inter- 
fere with the question as to the character of the federal executive office, 
whether it be monarchical or otherwise. 



76 The Means of Preventing War. 

he proposes a compromise of its interests and principles 
to the passions he has brought with him, though they 
may be enUsted in a good cause. Even another and 
very different description of persons, the advocates of 
universal peace, would not be warranted in the promotion 
of that cause, did it tend to throw back, in their own 
country, the interests of humanity. Inasmucli as the 
Irish question has put forth claims to American sympa- 
thy, it is but just to raise a collateral question of reason, 
that nullifies its pretensions. It ought not to be lost sight 
of, that there is admixed with this question the idea of an 
anti-Saxon movement. The drift of this allusion is 
not to the circumstance of an Anglo-Saxon country, 
(England,) being the object of this movement, as if such 
a circumstance should affect the bearing of a just and 
unobstrusive sympathy ; far from it. But where the sym- 
pathy is called upon to assume a different character, to 
subject itself to indefinite demand upon its activity, it is 
no appeal to prejudice, although a caution against dan- 
gerous prepossession, to suggest the tendencies, immedi- 
ate or remote, of the sympathy invoked. The tendency 
of the whole scheme of excitement, is to animate the im- 
pulses of one-half of the Anglo Saxon race, now in the 
world, into a not inactive interest in the domestic insecur- 
ity of the oiher. But the prospects of tlie entire race, 
and of (he world likewise, can ill afford that loss in pro- 
gress, which may result from any abatement of the ener- 
gies of either branch ; and if those of iheone are of di- 
minished power or compass, through the opposition of 
forces impelled by the other, those of the latter are ill 
spent, to say the very least. It is not, indeed, in any 
comhiiiation, but in the obse>vance of the most perfiect 
political independence of one anoth(;r, that the njission of 
the two branches of this race will be best fulfilled. But 
that very independence is molested and tampered with, ff 
the parties who are forming projects of intrusion upon 
the internal peace of the one, have a disproportionate 
share of moral influence conceded to them in the other. 
The naturalized parties alluded to, are of course una- 
ware how prejudicial are the movements under objection, 
to their own national interests as Americans, which is all 
that they have any right to call themselves. 



Tke Means of Preventing War. 77 

A word or two may be added on the advantage, nega- 
tive as it is, of the invidious considerations wiiich have 
attended the intercourse of England and the United 
States — circumstances not immaterial in qualifying the 
good nnderstandmg between these two nations. Whether 
we may or may not assume that they have outgrown the 
likelihood of war with one another, or that the repug- 
nance of national sentiment, in both countries, to such an 
event, is a more than ordinary security against its oc- 
currence ; the usefulness of their mutual petty feelings 
to the interests of the world, consists in ihe prevention of 
certain entebifes which might otherwise be anticipated 
from their affinity. A comparison of this observaiioit, 
with some that have gone before, if superficially regard- 
ed, may seem to create a paradox. Its reference is rather 
to the prematurity of such enteintes — that is, their exis- 
tence, before the tone of international morality shall have 
become such as to preclude the idea of their combination to 
molest the independence of other natims. However they 
might pride themselves on their aversion to war, and 
however influenced b/ a sincere desire to undertake a 
joint mission to advance the civilization of the world m 
the most pacific modes, it is too probable that self-gratifi- 
cation would be the predominant impulse. At all events 
it is a mission with which they can hardly be yet entrus- 
ted. Until their governments shall abandon, on princi- 
ple, the prevailing doctrines on the subject of war, they 
will be scarcely fit, either of them, for the enjoyment of 
power, the double of that which already each of them 
possesses. There is no doubt as to their extending civil- 
ization, under such circumstances, with a vastly augment- 
ed influence. But whether they would undertake it in 
any other mode than that which has been hitherto usual 
among nations, may well be questioned. There can be 
no danger of misapprehension of the allusion to circum- 
stances invidious in their nature ; inasmuch as the remark 
contains nothing recommendatory or congratulatory as 
touching those circumstances, but simply an explanation 
of their providential use. There is, indeed, an obvious 
limit to the utility, or even harmlessness, of an invidious 
countenance, in either nation, towards the other. There 



78 The Means of Preventing War. 

has been much complaint, in this country, of EngUsh 
travellers traducing it — a practice which cannot gain 
upon the better feelings of any people. True it is that 
various States, in the Union, do sometimes speak as pre- 
judicially of one another as foreigners ever speak of the 
entire country ; for differences in /a^i/wrfe affect the mod- 
ifications of taste in a much greater degree than those of 
longitude — other circumstances being equal. But vari- 
ance in tastes, and even jealousies, between different sec- 
tions of the same country, are not intolerable evils, so 
long as there is room for them on the same platform. — 
But a national practice of disparaging another country, is 
very unfavorable to pacific prospects, however indirect 
and remote may be the effects from it. Those who con- 
duct the press of a country, since they are always regard- 
ed, in other countries, as representing its spirit, should 
never fail to bear this in mind, characterized, as the press 
too often is, with a reckless impolicy.* 

There would be more security for a cloudless prospect, 
had England no possessions on this side of the Atlantic. 
These, all together, are not now worth, to her, the cost of 
a war (if ever there should be one) to protect them, even 
were the greatest success to attend her arms. The north- 
ern colonies have outgrown their state of pupilage, and 
can only, in a state of independence, make those returns 
to the mother country, on account of which their exist- 
ence is of any consideration to her. As regards the Brit- 
ish West Indies, the career of the Anglo-Saxon, on his 
own account, is there manifestly closed. A new crisis in 
the history of his mission to the African might be hast- 
ened, and appears to be the only substitute for the stag- 
nation tliat now fills every department of life in those 

* There was an occasion, about the year 1842, on which the British and 
French nations were much incensed against each otlier. Sir llobert Peel, 
then prime Minister, remarked in ParUament, on the grand moral spectacle, 
then presented to the world, m which, while the press in both countries was 
doing its best to precipitate war, the two illustrious chieftains, then contem- 
poraries in political ascendancy, as formerly they had been in military com- 
mand, (Wellington and Soult,) were using their utmost efforts, each to con- 
ciliate the opposite country, and to pacify his own. The observations 
(which it would have been preferable to quote literally, were they accessible 
to more than imperfect recollection,) were circulated in several French and 
American journals. 



The Means of Preventing War. 79 

colonies.* Their independence, or quasi independ« nee, 
under the administration of a Colonization or African so- 
ciety, on one or both sides of the Atlantic, nnght be 
guarantied by all nations. Their special protection might 
be provided for by treaty, including provisions expressly 
intended for observance in time of war. In the devotion 
of those scenes to a philanthropic experiment, there 
would be no scope for international jealousy ; at the same 
time, it is their legitimate destiny. It will be a day of 
the highest interest to humanity, and the commencement 
of an important era, in the reign of providence, when the 
last remains of possibly attractive grounds for collision 
are removed, between powers whose associate mission is 
so strongly apparent. 

Nor has yet been mentioned that which may be sur- 
mised as to the effect of temptations or provocations 
offered to the weak side of the American character. — 
Shonld there be ever again a collision between this na- 
tion and one which, in power, may compare with it, let 
the world, and still more, let ourselves, be prepared for the 
dire consequences ! It is to be apprehended that such a 
martial spirit would take hold of our people, as would be 
long before it could subside. An immense portion of our 
population, conscious of the facilities for their adaptation, 
on very short summons, to the most arduous enterprises, 
would (we dread the thought !) sacrifice probably every 
consideration to that of military glory. The profession of 
arms can too easily become every man's profession here 
to allow a hope of the early termination of a war in 
which the utmost strength and spirit of the nation were 
drawn out. With anything rather than " flattering unc- 
tion," should we feel imbued, at the contemplation of such 
a state of things ! Besides that a military republic ever 
ends in despotism — how vitally, if not fatally, would all 
the arts of peace, the cultivation of every virtue, the sour- 
ces of domestic and social enjoyment, and every other 
blessing, be then affected, even in the soil where they 
have taken root deeply, and which is the home of every 
element of happiness ! 

* The present proprietry class, who are ready to abandon at least the 
island of Jamaica, would be as glad to receive, as they would be (and are 
even now) entitled to, compensation on yielding up ih^ix lands. 



80 The Means of Prevetiting War. 

And now a word to Mexico. Let her sons " talk no 
more so exceeding proudly."* as to military pretensions ; 
but let them, influenced by generous woman, and by 
sunny climes, aspire to become the Trouhadows of 
peace. Tliis is the only chance now remaining to them 
for natio lal distinction. To the women of Mexico, there 
remams but this step to crown the character that awaits 
them in history, namely, to cherish this association, and 
to foster it in their countrymen. An exertion of such in- 
fluence would be the best commentary on woman's mis- 
sion, that the world has seen — always excepting that pre- 
sented by the " company of women,"! who followed to 
his cross the Prince of Peace. If in your sphere, women 
of Mexico, you are " to time, as stars to night,''J your 
course is determined on, and the decree is gone forth, that 
your mission shall not fail ! 

In conclusion ; — We have set before mankind no Uto- 
pian prospects as the promised reward for abjuring war — 
none other than they can substantiate, if they will but 
commence the project of attaining them. Our ardent 
hope is that a republic will be the first to adopt measures 
avowedly for that end, and thus evince to the world how 
a self-governing people can anticipate others in the race of 
civilization. But rather than that it should be delayed, 
let the glory of so doing be yielded to the most absolute 
sovereign. Sooner, indeed, than behold this movement 
retarded, lest civilization should lose the credit of it, glad- 
ly should we receive the lesson from the most unenlighten- 
ed tribe that a missionary ray ever penetrated.il There 

* I Sam. i. 3. t Luke, xxiii. '27. t Pollok. 

II The Rev. James Long, Missionary of the Church of England in Calcut- 
ta, bears this testimony ; — " I ha\e seen the benefits conferred by the Peace 
Society, both at home and abroad; and I regard it as eminently calculated to 
promote the glory of God, and the good of men. 1 rejoice to have an oppor- 
tunity of co-operating, as a clergyman of the English Church, in the designs 
of so noble and excellent a Society. I have labored among the Hindoos for 
eight yearS; a large number of whom have renounced idolatry, and are fully- 
acquainted with English literature; but Ikeir greatest objection to the receptixm 
of CkrisLianity is the loarlike spirit manifested by those who profess it. They 
read the history of England, and then tell us, " You say that Jesus Christ 
taught his disciples to love their enemies; but we find that you English 
Christians have been engaged for hundreds of years in killing the French, 
and other nations ! Your history abounds with scenes of blood, which are 
approved of by your best and even your religious writers, while your clergy 
offer thanks to God, as if he were a God of blood, like our Kale, when you 



TJie Means of Preventing War. 81 

is hope for the world, both civiHzed and barbarian. Not- 
withstanding the backwardness of each, an estimate of 
universal peace is abroad, adequate to encourage a very- 
great confidence in the effect of a single national exa?nple 
of the nature we plead for — the abjuration of war. Grate- 
fully, as we believe, would the tidings of such an 
event fall on the ear^f a vast portion of mankind, in all 
lands. Whether we set or follow the example, the ad- 
vantage to our representatives, everywhere, commercial, 
political and religious, when able to tell it abroad that no 
wars are waged by llicir countrymen, would surpass the 
most glowing descriptions of national success in any past 
enterprises; and the moral effect would be but feebly 
symbolized by the transmutation of steel into gold. Glo- 
rious things await such a nation in the prospective history 
of the human race. If internal peace is maintained by 
her consistently with her external banner, both the wise 
and the rich of the earth will, in greater and greater num- 
bers, " bring their glory and honour into her."* Her con- 
verse with other nations will dispense the flowers of good- 
will " beside all waters"t — a circling tie more soft, yet not 
less strong, than that "golden chain" in which "generous 
commerce binds the nations."! The picturesque distribu- 
tions of society by Providence, have certainly no less 
claim than the disposition of the natural world, to be ac- 
counted as the pattern of a more excellent economy. For 
eminence in eternal fame will be the endless reflection of 
moral light from the associated past and present. And as 
the works of individuals accompany them from the pre- 
sent stage of being, yea, have recorded themselves forever, 
it cannot be otherwise with nations. Their past is inex- 
tinguishable. A memorial is engraven forever of the part 
which they have had in the elevation or depression of the 
human race. " Rahab and Babylon, Phihstia, and Tyre ; 

fain a battle." They say, moreover, that since England put her foot in In- 
ia, a century ago, there has been nothing but war ; and I am sorry to say 
I cannot contradict them. This objection to the reception of Christianity is 
the most difficult to answer of any I have to deal with. I have for twelve 
years been advocating the principles of this Society ; and as long as I have 
breath and strength, I will continue to advocate them." 

* Rev. xxii, 24. t Isaiah, xxxii, 20. 

t "— Generous commerce binds 

The round of nations in her golden chain." — Thompson. 

12 



82 Supj)lemental Notes. 

with Ethiopia" — are they noiXo ho. ''made mention of?" 
Let us not doubt, then, of this sequel to our country's his- 
tory, whether to its glory or to its shame. Nor let us 
cease to contemplate that a nation which will cultivate in 
itself a type of the City of Peace, it will be a future de- 
light to call our own in the days of a renovated world ; 
for it will be commemorated that "this and that man was 
born in her !"* 



SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. 

A. — On the term Chivalry. 

The modern use that is made of this term, particularly 
in some parts of this country, is more injurious to the interests 
of morality than is commonly suspected. Its original asso- 
ciations are military, and it should be properly confined to that 
sphere. In its transferred application to social qualities, it 
implies primarily the performauce of any thing in the approved 
manner of a knight of the middle ages. Consequently, he that 
aims at a repute for chivaly, has but to affect the knight in that 
which he undertakes, whether it be a quarrel, or a question of 
deportment towards the fair sex, or a money-matter — with 
reference to which last-named description, there is an impres- 
sion abroad that the clergy have not less to complain of from 
the laity of the chivalrous soil than from any other. The evil 
arising from the vulgar uso of the term, grows out of its in- 
definite character, combined with its prepossessing associations. 
To that conduct which is expected from any gentleman, it often 
assigns a factitious credit ; while that wlrich is unseemly it 
palliates, whenever an association of it with knighthood can be 
conjured up. In nine out of ten cases in which it is made use 
of, the object is ad caj^tcmclmn — to throw a gloss over that 
which may or may not be proper. If sacrifccs are in question, 
those required by the spirt of Christianity look down on those 
of the best chivalry. If heroism is intended to be expressed, 
that term needs no substitute, and at all events its place is not 
as well supplied by the term chivalry. In fact, every depart- 
ment of rectitude requires to be protected from the risk of 
being levelled, (through the application of this term to it) to 
that conduct which requires gloss to recommend it. Propriety, 

* Ps. Ixxxvii, 5. 



Sajiplejnenial Notes. 83 

inorality, compassion, courage, arc terms adequate to express the 
ideas to which they are respectively assigned ; and how are any 
of these qualities improved by characterizing them as chivalrous? 
In so far as they arc of Christian complexion, they lose by 
such designation ; as the Christian light iu which they appear 
implies a sacrifice io jiruicipk ; whereas, chivalry, when it 
implies sacrifice, refers it rather to glory, appearances, passion, 
will-worship, self-will — one or more of these. Any little deed 
of compassion may be invested with the colour of chivalry, 
if attended with "a set phrase." For designalive force, any 
thing that chivalry is ever intended to signify, can be more 
definitely, and therefore more appropriatel}', expressed. To 
say that a person is chivalrous, conveys now-adays but a vague 
idea of his character, if any at all. Where a stranger, however, 
in some parts of this country, is informed, for his edification, 
that the inhabitants tJtcrc are a chivalrous people (while he may 
have been previously under an impression that the people of the 
United States generalbj had, as much as any other, the best 
features ever suggested by the expression) the real idea that 
most commonly suggests its use on such occasion?, is, that the 
people in those parts are generous, or (perhaps no more than) 
gentlemanhi ; though sometimes it indicates (without the inten- 
tion of implying) that they have not a little to say in demon- 
stration of a tendency to cultivate analogies to the deportment 
of the knights we read of in history and in fable. Be the 
afiectation ever so innocent in itself — be the imitation of knights 
ever so wise or foolish — the gloss is the same ; and true honour 
is thus often placed on a level with the pretensions of conceit. 
As the term under stricture has been occasionally used in this 
review, the author owes it to himself to observe that, when he 
has employed it, it has been in a military application. 

The highest principle of chivalry, if the term be used in a 
moral sense, would be the same that characterizes true nobility — 
which, in the estimation of Michelet,* is self-sacrifice ^ for good 
ends. But we should learn of Him f whose self-sacrifice was 
the greatest that can be conceived. Apart, however, from a 
regard to the christianized aspect of the principle, it is one of 
which Christians, so called, are indebted to the infidel philoso- 
pher for reminding them, in an age in which a habit of non- 
committal is the highest virtue. By their religious profession 
they are already committed, beyond the power to repudiate it, 
to self-sacrifice for the good of man, and for the advancement 
of the Redeemer's kingdom — which includes the studied iuter- 

* Pciiplp, ch. 3 + Mat xi, 29. 



84 Supplemental Notes. 

ests of all the i^rinclples of peace at some personal hazard. 
The proclamation of "peace on earth,"* both as Si 2}>'inciple and 
as z. 2'>i'omisc^ and the avowal, too, of an intention "not to send 
peace but a sword"t — in the sense of sufferings incurred, both 
in moral conflicts with the elements adverse to that principle, 
and for the realization of that promise — are testimonies not in- 
consistent, though on opposite sides of the truth which they 
together maintain. The difficulties predicted are but negative 
conditions of the providence that advances the principles for 
which the self-sacrificer labours. "Good-will towards men" is 
the light that kindles the voluntary self sacrifice, which, the 
more it burns, though with the acutest feeling, is more secure 
from being consumed. Such is Christian heroism — such is 
true Christianity militant — such the most elevated manifestation 
of what might be called moral chivalry. 



B. — On Repudiation. 

The repudiation of Mississippi — its occurrence being base(5 
on circumstances represented to the author by an ex-Governor 
of that State, who was a prominent repudiator — was an exhibi- 
tion of political fanaticism by a party that gained the ascen- 
dancy in the State. Another party, when in power, obtained a 
vote of the legislature in favor of their proposal to raise a 
certain sum of money, under certain circumstances. An article 
of the State constitution, it appears, prohibited the measure.| 
The minority gave public warning that the State would there- 
fore not be bound by the act, and that, though the vote might 
succeed, yet if they should come into power, they could never 
pay it as a State debt. This party gained the ascendency at a 
subsequent election, on the basis of this very principle, and 
came into power pledged to sustain it. They admit that the 
money raised ought to be paid to the parties who lent it — but 
by those who raised it, not by the State of Mississippi, against 
whose authority (they assert) the transaction took place ; while 

* Luke, ii, 14. + Matthew, x, 34. 

; Without knowing precisely the objection in point, we cite from an 
" Abstract of the Constitution of Mississippi," in the American Almanac 
(1848, p. 287,) the following: — "No State loan can be raised, unless the 
bill be passed by a majority of each house, be pubUshed three months be- 
fore the next election, and be confirmed by a majority of each house at the 
next legislature." 



Supplemental Notes. S5 

the opposite party, who raised the money, have always been 
anxious for the payment. It was not, then, an intrinsic dis- 
honour that actuated the repudiating party, but the exaggera- 
tion of i)arty feeling into an uncompromising fanaticism; and 
fanaticism is never devoid of immorality, inasmuch as it sacri- 
fices any thing ■ind every thing to the principle (be it a good or 
a bad one) which it has espoused. It can be hardly believed 
that the people of Mississippi expected their treasury to be 
gainer by their course. They should rather be considered as 
having sacrificed pecuniary, as well as every other consideration, 
good, bad, and indifferent, to their party- position. But there 
are anomalies in the matter which are not unworthy of fanati- 
cism. They never summoned to trial the parties who had thus 
trifled with the constitution, and, in consequence, with the 
credit of the State. Nor did they care who suffered, so long as 
they gained their political point. Nor is that all ; for they 
have never concerned themselves whether the matter was rightly 
understood by the world or not. This does but show how, 
in looking to themselves alone for justice, mankind obtain for 
themselves but very little of it. So negligent have they been 
of representing the matter fairly to the world, that, not only in 
other countries, but almost throughout the United States, the 
prevailing view is this ; — that the State of Mississippi, having 
borrowed money, and not choosing to pay it, has 1 re- 
pudiated !* Among those out of that State, who have made 
inquiry into the transaction, are some who do not regard the 
State as bound to pay the money, grounding their judgment on 
the analogy existing between the responsibility of an individual 
and that of the State — the former not being answerable for 
more than has been done by his authority. But they, like the 
good people of Mississippi, forget that the actual government of 
a State is the State itself, to all political intents and purposes. 
The vital head of a State is all that can be externally communi- 
cated with. Any absolute power that might be set up in a 
nation for a brief period,' if internally and externally recognized, 
binds the State by its contracts, though it may not have conde- 
scended to notice the constitution which was established antece- 
dently to its despotic rule, even so far as to declare it to have 
been set aside; for this power is j)oUtAcalhj the State itself, and 
a violation of the constitution is a matter of domestic responsi- 
bility. It is rather surprising that no creditor (that we have 
heard of ) has brought the question into Court. A favourable 

* Mississippi has other debts, which she has not repudiated. 



86 Supplemental Notes. 

decision might not improbably have been obtained in the 
Courts of Mississippi, if brought before new judges were ap- 
pointed ; for, holding office, as they do in that JState, for six 
years, those appointed under the former administration may not 
have vacated at the period of repudiation. JBut if otherwise, 
the Supreme Court of the United States, of which it is the 
province to expound the duty of sovereign States, if appealed to, 
protects the right, on whichever side it is. As regards the 
jyrospect it should be observed, in the first place, that all those 
Mississippians who approved of the measure for raising the 
loan, are eager for the settlement of the debt ; nest, that there 
are others, who, though repudiators on behalf of the State, 
nevertheless desire to see restitution to the injured parties ; and 
further, that (as the author has been informed) those who are 
opposed to repudiation, possess the greater portion of the 
property to be taxed. If so vast a portion of it is in their 
hands, and if it be within their competency to pay off the debt 
without troubling the State with it (of which fact the present 
writer has been assured by intelligent travellers) there is ground 
for hope that measures are in early prospect for the disencum- 
brance of that State directly, and of the whole Union indirectly, 
from the discredit which has been its portion in consequence of 
the untoward proceeding. But, if the proper parties should 
not take the requisite measures, would not every person in the 
union who is able to part with a quarter dollar, make that con- 
tribution towards the preservation of national character, and 
for the reimbursement of those foreigners who have been thus 
spoiled of their all, in return for their confidence in a majority 
of gentlemen in one of our State legislatures? Such a course 
could be no cause of offence to the State of Mississippi, inas- 
much as she has professedly nothing to do with the business. 
It is to be hoped that no foreigner will be allowed to steal a 
march on us, by bequeathing property enough to settle the 
repudiated amount ; (for it is not long since a considerable sum 
was bequeathed to this country " for the diffusion of knowledge 
among men.") If, in that case, the pride of the nation would be 
wounded, there is, alas! more just cause for it to be so, while 
thi debt is unpaid. Should this mode of settlement be in the 
womb of destiny — and almost all parties out of the State agree 
that there is some destined mode — how bitter is the cup of mor- 
tification in store for those in Mississippi, who borrowed the 
money, have always desired that it should be paid, ai-e able to 
pay it themselves, but have not yet done it I If indeed their 
only motive for not raising the required fund among themselves, 
is, (as it has been suggested) an anxiety that their State should 



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Supplemental Notes. 87 

redeem itself, tlien wliy do they not purchase the investment 
from those who now hokl it, and take their own chance of its 
being one day paid by their State 1 

Before dropping this subject, we submit the following passage 
from Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, vol. viii., 1843, Article on 
the National Tebts of Europe, by Francis Wharton, an eminent 
lawyer in Pennsylvania : 

" That the funding policy, both of the whig administration of 
Sir Robert Walpole and of the tory administration of Mr. Pitt, 
was dangerous in the extreme, in its consequential influence, 
will be readily admitted. We believe that no more satisfactory 
precedent can be found for the repudiation of our own days, 
than the reduction by the English government, between 1716 
and 1727, of the interest accruing on the funded debt, from six 
to th7-ee and a half per cent. We scarcely know a more strik- 
ing instance of national ill-faith, than the appropriation by Mr. 
Pitt and Lord Henry Petty, of the sinking fund pledged to 
public creditors, to the purposes of temporary revenue. Such 
precedents require the intervention of a strong over-ruling hand 
to prevent their repetition ; and we trust, for the honor of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, both in the country from whence its origin is 
dated, and in the country in which its later energies have taken 
root, that the principle on which they are based, will be crushed 
signally and forever." 



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